Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[trappedslider]

It's been growing in popularity. I think the low cost, low barrier to entry, slower pace of play, and ability to use old cards makes it really attractive as current, new magic is growing ever increasingly more expensive, faster, and less attractive.

One of the cards from the recent Final Fantasy set was one of the keystone, linchpin card to the top meta deck in the Standard format, and it became very expensive. It's cheapest, regular printing reaching upwards of $60/ea, or $240 for a playset. WOTC made a statement in September saying it needed to be banned, would probably be banned, but weren't actually going to ban anything until November.

This put competitive players in a really tough spot. There were still events to go grind.. The card was still legal for the time being.. But the price immediately started dropping. (It now sits around $25/ea) Do I cash out now? Or hold out? What if I cash out now, and then they don't ban it? The price will go back up as people rush to re-buy!!

Bad feels all around. A pauper card gets banned, and it's like

"Oh dang.. I'm out $1.48 for that playset of Deadly Disputes.. Good thing I didn't spring the $2.50 for the foil playset!"

and they don't send death/doxing threats like what happened last year or two with Commander that lead to WotC taking over.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's been growing in popularity. I think the low cost, low barrier to entry, slower pace of play, and ability to use old cards makes it really attractive as current, new magic is growing ever increasingly more expensive, faster, and less attractive.

One of the cards from the recent Final Fantasy set was one of the keystone, linchpin card to the top meta deck in the Standard format, and it became very expensive. It's cheapest, regular printing reaching upwards of $60/ea, or $240 for a playset. WOTC made a statement in September saying it needed to be banned, would probably be banned, but weren't actually going to ban anything until November.

This put competitive players in a really tough spot. There were still events to go grind.. The card was still legal for the time being.. But the price immediately started dropping. (It now sits around $25/ea) Do I cash out now? Or hold out? What if I cash out now, and then they don't ban it? The price will go back up as people rush to re-buy!!

Bad feels all around. A pauper card gets banned, and it's like

"Oh dang.. I'm out $1.48 for that playset of Deadly Disputes.. Good thing I didn't spring the $2.50 for the foil playset!"

I never deconstructed my favorite decks. It was never about the cost or the resale value for me. It was about wins & losses…complicated by my inner contrarian and DIY personality traits.

I never wanted to play copies of online decks. I wanted to innovate. I wanted to surprise other players. In one of my first tournaments, I played a deck centered around Hypnotic Specter, Millstones and other cards that cycled through my opponent’s decks. It just so happened that my second match was against essentially a mirror image, and the card draws went in my opponent’s favor. Apparently, we’d both been noticed in the first round, because our match had a BIG audience, including some players who became well known.*

And this was months before that style of deck became popular.

To be clear, I didn’t win a lot of tournaments. I spent 75%+ of my time in the losers brackets! But I scared or impressed a lot of highly-ranked players.

Some people also actually asked to play me to test stuff out. One guy asked me to show him the weaknesses in the Illusions/Donate deck. A mono black deck with Drain Life and an array of nasty creatures costing 2B, 1BB or BBB (and other cards) made for a long and difficult best of 3 match (which he narrowly won).



* I found out much later when I ran into them at OTHER tournaments.

 

[el-remmen]

That sounds like a cool format. I might still be playing if that had been around before I quit.

Me too

 

[soviet]

I almost made a thread for it, but felt it wasn't interesting enough to warrant one, which is how it ended up here.

Pauper is a blast. It may not be great for you, as it's still a hyper competitive format that does rely on a lot of new cards. That's actually one of my favorite things about it. It's this weird format that is based around a lot of old, very powerful cards, like Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, and Brainstorm.. But then they're all held together by the weird janky modern commons of today which tend to not see Standard play because they were more designed as draft filler pieces. With that said, it is very affordable, as it's name suggests. Many of the new cards that see play are very cheap.. Often worth <$0.50/ea. Many of the "Expensive" staples tend to be some of those older cards that haven't seen many(or sometimes any) reprints, like Snuff Out which is around $6/ea I think these days. You can put together a deck capable of winning a local event for <$50 quite easily.

There is a format that is currently gaining a lot of popularity however that may be right up your alley called Pre-Modern. It has the deck building restriction of cards from 4th edition, until the adoption of the "Modern" card frame. It's very popular, in part due to the love of the old border.

I just got into premodern and I'm enjoying it. It's exactly the era from when I started playing casually to when I started playing semi-competitively to when I quit. It's slower magic so it's more skillful magic, also it's completely immune to WotC's ongoing poisoning of the game. I enjoyed Legacy for a long time before it got ruined by all the busted new cards.

I'm interested in Pauper as well, just ordered some more recent cards so I can build the mono blue terror deck.

 

[soviet]

Some people also actually asked to play me to test stuff out. One guy asked me to show him the weaknesses in the Illusions/Donate deck. A mono black deck with Drain Life and an array of nasty creatures costing 2B, 1BB or BBB (and other cards) made for a long and difficult best of 3 match (which he narrowly won).

I played Extended when Illusions-Donate was the best deck. The way to beat it is with a disenchant effect with the life gain ability still on the stack, so they lose 20 life without having gained it first. Seal of Cleansing is great because you can cast it in advance and then it can't be duressed.

 

[el-remmen]

I never wanted to play copies of online decks.

Yeah. I was much more into creating thematic decks that tried to do something cool and playing with friends rather than competitive play.

 

[trappedslider]

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah. I was much more into creating thematic decks that tried to do something cool and playing with friends rather than competitive play.

Exactly!

I did a deck that Samuel L Jackson would NOT have appreciated: it had all the various poisonous snake token creating cards PLUS spells & artifacts that made them fly.

One of my tournament decks had Living Plane as a centerpiece- an enchantment that made all lands into 1/1 creatures, and thus, not tappable for mana on their first turn in play. Add Lhurgoyf and critters & artifacts that could easily do 1pt of damage to all creatures... I ruined a LOT of players’ plans that tournament, and was headed for a strong finish. But so many of the other players left at the end were highly-ranked AND scheduled to play in other events that they ended that event in a 9 way tie.

Then there were things like Righteous War and some artifact that made all permanents colorless that ruined a lot of mono White decks, much to the amusement of those gathered to watch…

 

[el-remmen]

it had all the various poisonous snake token creating cards PLUS spells & artifacts that made them fly.

I think I made the same deck. It won a lot until it didn’t.

I had a fairy deck that let me put fairies in play without paying mana (that I loved but never worked very well) and my “untouchable” (green, all creatures that cannot be targeted by spells or effects) is still together since about 1998. lol

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think I made the same deck. It won a lot until it didn’t.

People HATED when I got that one out. I’m certain your experience was similar.