(Note: I am continuing the Entertainment Compendiums week-ish long Halloween celebration with a themed deck list. I’ve already posted my zombie deck, so here is my first attempt at graveyard/deck manipulation in the form of Sultai.)

Spells (16)

Bitter Revelation (2)
Diabolic Tutor (2)
Dutiful Return (2)
Reclaim (3)
Strength from the Fallen (2)
Taigam’s Scheming (3)
Wreath of Geists (2)

Creatures (26)

Abomination of Gudul (2)
Bant Sojurners (3)
Dreg Mangler (2)
Drudge Beetle (2)
Embodiement of Spring (3)
Kheru Dreadmaw (2)
Nemesis of Mortals (4)
Sanctum Plowbeast (2)
Shambling Attendants (2)
Sluiceway Scorpion (1)
Sultai Scavenger (2)
Thrashing Mossdog (1)

Land (23)

Dismal Backwater (4)
Evolving Wilds (4)
Forest (2)
Island (2)
Opulent Palace (2)
Plains (2)
Svogthos, the Restless Tomb (2)
Swamp (2)
Thornwood Falls (3)

The deck is a bit beefier than the standard 60 cards. That’s only because I didn’t want to cut it down to 60. Also, the Evolving Wilds are sort of like a bonus. They are there both as ghetto fetch lands and also as a way to power the “delve” cards without exiling creatures. I ultimately don’t care that much about creatures except for the Nemesis and tried to grab some with deathtouch so that their trades will clear minions from the board. Nemesis can be such a tough card to remove and there are four just in case it does eat some removal.

The Bant cards came as luck would have it from a flea market purchase and I thought to drop them in there as blockers and also to cycle the deck/hit the graveyard as Nemesis food. So far I have only goldfished with the deck, but it has played well in this latest iteration. Have fun working the graveyard shift!

(Note: I also want to make this into a Youtube series, but I wanted to test it out here first. Be on the lookout for that.)

What is Khans of Tarkir?

Khans of Tarkir (further referred to only as “Khans”) is the latest expansion set for the trading card game Magic: the Gathering. It was released to much fanfare on the weekend of September 26, 2014.

What is the big deal about Khans?

I will discuss three aspects of Khans, in the following order; Morph, fetch lands, and wedges.

“Morph” is a mechanic that allows you to cast a creature as a “morph” 2/2 creature for 3 colorless mana. Some morph creatures have an effect when they are turned face up. The colorless mana cost allows you to cast the creature even if you haven’t been able to draw the required mana combination. It also adds intrigue and strategy to the game as your opponent tries to determine the nature of the card while it is morphed. However, the creature, while morphed, is only a 2/2 and therefore very easy to remove.

The other two, fetch lands and wedges, are features that have been asked for by the Magic playing community. Players asked for fetches back because they are integral to certain strategies in the game. Wizards of the Coast reprinted them from the Alara block. This made the players understandably happy because another reason for the request of fetch lands was that the originals are very expensive for two reasons. First, they are rare. Second, the word is that foreign speculators and manipulators bought up many of the original fetch lands to inflate the price.

Wedges are a three color strategy to building decks. The Alara block also centered around three color decks. The difference between the themes of the two sets is that during Alara, the three colors were one main color and its two allied colors and during Khans, the three colors are two allied colors and their naturally opposed color. You can see my soon to be posted “Noob’s Guide to Magic: The Gathering Mana Wheel” and the gif below to get an idea of what I mean.

Story/Lore

The stories are one of my favorite developments of gaming. Instead of simply running from one end of the screen only to find that “your princess is another castle”, you are often now treated to a movie quality story. Magic has a one of those constantly evolving stories that continues into Khans. Tarkir is a plane that has seen all of the dragons hunted to extinction and 5 clans now war over territory and resources. These five clans are the story behind the wedges.

The Clans – These are summarized from the lore book in the Khans of Tarkir Fat Pack.

Abzan (Colors: White/Black/Green): They use the endurance of the dragon through their ability Outlast, which allows you to use mana and tapp the creature to add a +1/+1 counter on to that creature.

Jeskai (Colors: Blue/Red/White): The cunning of the dragon is evident in their ability Prowess, which allows a creature to gain +1/+1 until the end of the turn when a noncreature spell is cast.

Sultai (Colors: Black/Green/Blue): The Sultai are as ruthless as the dragon with their ability Delve, which trades cards in your graveyard as colorless mana to reduce the casting cost of powerful spells.

Mardu (Colors: Red/White/Black): The Mardu bring the speed of the dragon to the battlefield and use that speed to trigger their Raid ability. This ability allows different effects on the battlefield after having attacked.

Temur (Green/Blue/Red): The strength of the dragon is the the cornerstone of their ability Ferocious. Similar to the Mardu, Temur can trigger different abilities if they have a large creature on the field.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this Noob’s Guide to Khans of Tarkir. I will try to record and upload it to Youtube. Also, be ready for more Noob’s Guides coming soon!

The 2014 core set brought Slivers back in a big way. I noticed that as I opened my 2015 core set booster box they have continued that trend into this year. I haven’t worked any of those cards into this deck, but I might see what I can do with them. I know that the trend is to run slivers as an EDH deck, but I don’t have a playable version of any of the commanders yet, so I will keep it as a 60 card deck for now.

Creatures – 22

Bonescythe Sliver – 2
Sentinel Sliver – 2
Galerider Sliver – 1
Syphon Sliver – 2
Battle Sliver – 3
Blur Sliver – 2
Manaweft Sliver – 2
Predatory Sliver – 4
Sliver Construct – 4

Spells – 18

Hive Stirrings – 4
Verdant Haven – 4
Abundant Growth – 2
Trace of Abundance – 4
Profit/Loss – 2
Ready/Willing – 2

Artifacts – 2

Door of Destinies – 2

Land – 18

Plains – 2
Island – 2
Swamp – 2
Mountain – 2
Forest – 2
Shimmering Grotto – 2
Transguild Promenade – 4
Unknown Shores – 2

This is my first serious attempt at a 5 color deck. I chose Slivers because they naturally lend themselves to including all five colors. There is not removal in the deck. It is simply about building a board and overwhelming your opponent before they have had a chance to do anything to defend themselves. I recently learned that it is highly vulnerable to removal if you are too aggressive, though, so it is a bit of a tight rope walk of when to go “all in”. All of my decks come with the caveat, “They might not win you may games, but they are fun to play!”

If I had to choose a few cards to cut, I might go with the onstructs and maybe the Hive Stirrings to get more slivers in there that directly affect the board with buffs of their own. Also, I might try to put some more land in there and maybe since I’ve rediscovered it, I’d include some Evolving Wilds. As with the Slivers themselves, this deck has the potential to change at any minute. Stay tuned for my updates.

I missed my deadline for my article about Breaking Madden yesterday. I won’t be able to post it again until next week, so in its place, I’m giving you all an excerpt from the podcast that didn’t make it into the final cut. This will both offer a different perspective and a sneak peek at the same time. Enjoy and there’s more to come soon!

(Note: You want how much for that?)

I find myself doing something now that I never even considered previously. I’m not proud of it because it contributes to the problem instead of attempting to be a solution. It takes away from my enjoyment of Magic as a game and a hobby and it adds to my frustration over treating everything in society only in terms of money and profit. I don’t think that I will ever take the next logical step, but the forces driving that decision are strong. As I opened my new booster boxes of M15 and Khans of Tarkir, I would periodically type “(card name) price” into Google to assess the “value” of each card.

I became more aware of this topic after my student that plays Magic toldme a story of how he pulled a Sarkhan planeswalker card from one of his prize booster packs and someone offered him 25 dollars on the spot for it. I wrote Chris about it because we had only days before discussed that his Khans decks aren’t quite what they could be because the tri-lands and other cards are prohibitively expensive. He replied that he has known about the state of high priced cards ever since Ice Age. That stayed with me because as I’ve mentioned, Ice Age was when I stopped collecting before starting again recently. Economics wasn’t my main reason for stopping at the time. In fact, I had no idea that it even existed as a strategy in the hobby. I assumed that all collectibles, save the very rare ones, like steroid fueled home run baseballs, tanked in price because of oversaturation. That’s what happened to me as a kid when I tried to sell baseball cards at the local flea market. “Nope,” Chris replied before giving a very specific example from that former set.

The topic continued to ferment in my brain, catalyzed by discussions in the Magic Facebook group that I recently joined. everyone posted about how they “made back part (or all) of their money” from their booster boxes. Wow, I thought, a hundred bucks. After checking the posts, they were only selling a small fraction of the cards and that made the feat even more impressive. Someone else posted bragging about how they got such a good deal for their Rabblemaster at $6 because, even though nobody believed them, it was now worth $20. Hmm, I thought, I have one of those from the fat pack that I bought. Half of the purchase price of that fat pack could be recovered through the quick sale of one card.

I don’t understand economics as a subject in general. I can’t for the life of me, figure out how we can’t agree on anything as humans, but we all agree that a dollar is worth a dollar. Even when it isn’t worth a dollar anymore–like when people say, “In my day, you could get a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, and a stick of butter for a quarter and get change”–we still agree that it is a dollar. That makes no sense to me. It isn’t like money is a finite resource. The government seemingly prints new money daily. It is only finite for your individual circumstance due to your job, bills, and living situation.

I understand individual markets even less. Some make more sense than others. Mark McGwire only hit one #62 home run ball. I don’t understand paying millions of dollars for it, but if that’s your thing, then it is the only one out there. Like money, cards are not finite. Sure, some cards are more rare by design, but for $100 I can get 540 of those cards and so can pretty much everyone else. If they want, Wizards can fire up the printers and go to town on a whole new batch of them. Each pack contains 3 uncommons, and 1 rare or mythic rare card. Some packs have a foil. I don’t know the exact probabilities because I don’t have exact print numbers, but if the economics are to be believed, then I made back my money for my booster box with two cards, Sarkhan the Dragonspeaker and a foil Wooded Foothillls. That seems absolutely absurd.

I said that I would not ever take the next logical step, but that might be a lie. The foil card is sold out at Star City Games at a price of $60. That is about 2/3 of what I paid for a box that contains 540 cards in just one card. No matter what my individual thoughts might be on this subject, that is a tough deal to ignore. The problem as a collector, is that is the only copy of that card that I currently have. Therein lies the dilemma. While there may be many, many of those cards in existence, I only have one. Others may not have any because they didn’t open 36 packs of cards in the last week. The perceived value of the card is at least partially proportional to the perceived rarity of the card. I guess I do understand economics on some level.

I still think that it is absurd that somebody would consider paying $60 for a piece of cardboard just like I found it silly that someone paid $3 million for a baseball. Sixty dollars is hard to ignore, though. Back and forth. Sell or don’t. Ultimately, I don’t think that I will sell for two reasons. One, I don’t value money as much as I value the unique. If somewhere later, I can get someone to say, “Wow, you still have one of those?” that’s priceless. Second, the foil version of this card from an older set is currently worth $150. If I can get someone to both say, “Wow, you have one of those” and follow it up with, “I’ll give you $150 for it” then that is an unquestionable win for me.

Care to explain the changing/constant worth of a dollar paradox to me? Want to commiserate over coffee about the ridiculous pricing of certain cards as we play with paper and pen proxies because the hobby is too damn expensive? Looking to buy a foil Wooded Foothills for 60 bucks? In any case, let me know in the comments, by email, or on Facebook/Twitter. As always, thanks for reading and I will be back on Thursday with a new discovery (for me), Breaking Madden.