MTG thread

They should be in ABUR duals and other reserve list shit if they think that is at all a valid (lol) investment.

Shocks have barely changed price since RTR came out.
As much as everyone complains about card prices, no one plays living card games where it isn't an issue. If cards have no value, no one buys the reprint sets, so wotc stops making them. Then, your local store has no profit, so they stop holding tournaments. That takes away support for Standard.

There's a balance between some cards being too expensive, and everything being dirt cheap that they have to strike.

90% of the griping about modern prices is people who treat it like a stock market because they don't understand the real thing.

It seems like sets with strange pack ins like always a foil, have the duplicate/easily mapped shit going on.

Koushirou said:

Sounds like there's mapping shenanigans with 25. Guy opens 2 boxes in a row and gets identical rares/mythics except for a Jace in one box and not the other.

Ugh....2 boxes of Masters 25 opened, almost identical rares & mythics • r/magicTCG

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The only different rare/mythic between the two boxes was one Tree of Redemption swapped for one Jace the Mind Sculptor. People are saying this demonstrates that Jace was inserted later on in the production process rather than being a planned inclusion from the start.

Reading the Reddit thread it sounds widespread. Box mapping renders loose pack buying pretty much pointless as you can assume everything of value has been removed from each box.

The comments section of cards on mythicspoiler cracks me up sometimes. Some dude was comparing new Karn to phyrexian arena to show why he's not that great, rofl.

So far, Karn is the slam dunk money card of the set. Being a colorless planeswalker lets him go into so many decks that his demand will always be high. Especially since he's great for EDH, standard and possibly some modern play. Not to mention his iconic fan status, he's a step below Serra/Urza/Dragons for casual fans.

Phyrexian Arena was great each time it was Standard legal. I love that card.

I mean shit, even Underworld Connections was good in standard, and that taxed you mana for draws on top of the 1 life per turn.

Also seems Master 25 has ink blotching issues too.....

Id respond explaining why youre wrong, but ive been down that rabbit hole before.

Kuro said:

I mean shit, even Underworld Connections was good in standard, and that taxed you mana for draws on top of the 1 life per turn.

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Arbitrary said:

Phyrexian Arena was great each time it was Standard legal. I love that card.

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Yep! 4 colorless mana is about the same as 1BB, with none of the life loss/constant mana cost. Just on that aspect alone, he'd be borderline playable. Obviously, hes mostlly for control decks and maybe some midrangey/control decks, a deck that doesnt mind drawing more lands at first, basically. That the next karn can always grab a card a previous karn exiled is also a not an insignificant thing. The cards are on 'layaway', heh. If you can also work in some artifacts, even better, but not required.

But, its the flexibility to swap from card draw engine to creating blockers or winning the game is whats so strong about him. He comes down and goes up to 6 loyalty on turn 4 potentially, thats not super easy to deal with. Plus, opponents dont always pick the worst card. They may not realize what you actually need, kinda like fact or fiction piles. Or, it gives you info about what they care about less. All kinds of angles to make the drawback into an edge.

Karn is 100% playable, possibly as far back as vintage. It shits living weapon cranial platings and draws cards. It casts off 2 sol lands. I'll be jamming it in Tezz over Daretti for sure, possibly more.

edit: He's also superior to Coercive Portal, which already sees some play in shops.

Karn is obviously good in a vacuum but it depends on a few things as to how good he'll be in standard. If there are great 5-power hasted creatures he may not be worth it. Also he's way better in decks that can accelerate or control the board, or both. I'm pretty sure he'll see play in modern/legacy/vintage regardless though, very powerful colorless card.

norp said:

Karn is obviously good in a vacuum but it depends on a few things as to how good he'll be in standard. If there are great 5-power hasted creatures he may not be worth it. Also he's way better in decks that can accelerate or control the board, or both. I'm pretty sure he'll see play in modern/legacy/vintage regardless though, very powerful colorless card.

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5 power? He goes up to 6 loyalty the turn he enters play, if you +1 him, which i think you'll do most of the time. Unless you are making a creature, which gives him a blocker.

His -2 scales absurdly well. In an artifact control deck like tezzeret, his -2 could easily be a 4/4 or 5/5. He also digs through your deck as fast as Dack Fayden, which is no joke in modern.

As a huge Karn homer, I glady welcome our new 4c overlord.

One could probably argue there is no such thing as too many Karns, but I'm sure my wallet would disagree. I don't think I've constructed a modern deck that isn't TRON in like 3 years.

I had held off buying a box of Iconic Masters, even though I usually get a box of each masters set to play box sealed with a friend of mine. But at $130 and knowing I won’t be buying A25, I gave in.

Two Horizon Canopys helped me to barely break even. Prime Time, Kiki, and Channel were my mythics. It was fun to crack packs, but I wouldn’t buy another.

It was a good lesson for when I see a25 at $130 in the near future.