Hey guys! I'm sure some of you have noticed how a lot of Modern and Legacy staples have been steadily increasing in price lately and they're starting to get a little ridiculous. Since I'm working on building a Modern and Legacy deck, I'm with you all on the high prices. If you're used to just playing standard, then looking at the investment amount to get a tier-1 competitive Modern deck looks daunting to say the least. However, there are a few pros and cons to investing into an older format. Today, I'd like to discuss some of these pros and cons in hopes that people can understand what I've learned lately; Modern and Legacy are actually cheaper than Standard!
So, I decided to look around for a competitive Modern deck and found one that I think I will enjoy for a while. Which brings me to a good point. Pick a deck that you will be happy playing for a long time because you probably don't want to start dumping money into another deck after you finish the first one. I ended up picking B/G Control also known as "The Rock". After I finalized the list I want, the deck came out to about $2,500. Luckily I already had a good chunk of the cards needed for the deck, but the 4 Tarmogoyf, 4 Dark Confidant, 4 Verdant Catacombs and 2 Marsh Flats comes out to about $1,439.60 right now. That's... a lot for 14 pieces of cardboard. BUT! The biggest lesson I learned recently, is that the money you put into your Modern/Legacy staples is more stable than investing into Standard staples. Meaning, that if you dumped that much money into standard staples right now, by the time they all rotated out of standard, you'd be lucky to keep 25% of your investment. So much of Standard value just completely tanks after rotation. The value of Tarmogoyf, Confidant, etc will hold it's value over the years. They will always be playable in Modern, and these ones actually are highly played in Legacy too so those cards are even more secure. The value will still fluctuate a bit as the format changes around, but for the most part, you're not going to lose thousands of dollars from one year to the next once you invest into a Modern/Legacy deck.
Around this time every year, Modern/Legacy staples trend to rise in price and during the summer, they trend on coming back down. Prices fluctuate as archetypes become more or less popular, and as certain decks win major events. They also fluctuate as formats move through the seasons which is the most influential factor on prices. Think of it this way. If you wanted to get into snowboarding during the winter when everybody is excited about hitting the slopes, you'll be paying full price for a board, boots, bindings, lift tickets, etc. However, if you look into buying a setup during the summer, you're more likely to get a much better deal. Likewise, if you're looking into getting into Modern while the Modern season is in full swing, you're likely to pay a much higher price than you would if you look into it during Standard or Block season. Because I'm excited about Modern and Legacy right now, I'm probably going to be spending a bit more for some cards than I would later in Summer or early Fall. Prices for many of the cards I mentioned earlier have never been higher than they are right now. That means that they can come down. I highly recommend keeping daily/weekly tabs on the cards you're looking for. Pay attention to the trends and the decks that perform well in major events. You'll be able to find cards for much better prices when you understand how prices for cards move around.
Now let's dig into the Standard format a bit. Right now, you can pretty much build any Tier-1 deck for about $400-$600. As sets rotate out, a lot of the value is lost so you're best case scenario would be to take that $400-$600 deck and trade it straight across for the new stuff each spring about 4-5 months before rotation occurs.
Assuming you could find someone that;
1. Has the cards you need for the new cards.
2. Is willing to take your cards that are going to rotate.
3. Doesn't de-value your cards because rotation is coming up.
If you can find this guy, then there's still an issue. You don't know that what you're trading for is going to be a Tier-1 deck. Sometimes you can have a good idea to make an educated guess and get there, but for the most part, you're going to lose value on this trade. Keeping up with each rotation is rough because you're not the only person preparing for it. Some people start preparing for rotation as early as... now(May). That makes it difficult to trade away your staples from the rotating block to these people for the new stuff. Because of this, you have to put more money into buying the singles you need, opening boxes of the new sets, or finding value in the older portion of your collection(that will always hold value) to give away for something that's good for 2 years(or less). This is a never ending cycle every October that forces you to dump money into the game to keep up with the competitive environment. Of course, if you're a casual player, you're probably not too worried. But if you plan on being competitive and even plan on traveling for bigger events, then you'll need to devote some amount of resources to keep up with the format.
It might not seem like much right now because you have a decent collection for standard and you can probably move your Esper Control deck into Mono Black Devotion without too much stress. But when the new block comes out in October, your collection has already dropped in value. You don't really have time to trade your old stuff for new stuff before it's not legal in standard anymore. It costs money to keep up with standard, and if you're good at events and can collect some store credit, trade well and find some cheap cards to pick up on, you can lessen the blow, but in the long run, you'll be constantly spending money to keep up with the format. This makes standard the most expensive format in the game. It just seems like it's not because it's much cheaper to get a good deck quick.
Modern and Legacy aren't cheap. Pick a deck and set goals to get some cards over a period of time. Budget a small portion of your paycheck each month to get one or two cards. After awhile, you'll have a good deck that will always be worth what you put into it. Then if something comes out in a new set that provides something valuable to your deck, you just pick them up while they're cheap in standard. Nothing in standard usually ever reaches higher than $30-$35 dollars. That dollar amount looks like nothing compared to a play-set of fetch lands.
Another big tip is to pick a deck to build for Modern that includes a lot of cards that move into the Legacy deck you want to play. For example; the Tarmogoyfs, Confidants, Fetch Lands, Liliana of the Veil, Abrupt Decay, all move into the Legacy Punishing Jund deck that I'll be working on once I have the Modern version complete. That way, I'm not buying two complete(and expensive) decks, but rather 1 and a half decks.
The only big con to investing into Modern is the potential to get something banned in the format. If Birthing Pod were to get the 'Ban-Hammer', not only the Birthing Pod itself, but most of the deck would probably take a big hit in price. So that's something to look at when choosing a deck to build. The Rock deck that I'm working on could get Tarmogoyf banned, but the deck would still be pretty good. Liliana of the Veil won't drop. Dark Confidant won't drop. You get the picture. There are decks that can take a hit and there are some that can't, depending on the specific card that could get banned.
Basically, look for a deck, stick with it, set goals for collecting the cards. It won't be overnight, but eventually you'll be able to play Modern and later, Legacy.
My intention is to get players to start investing their resources into more long-term, and although higher price, lower-risk cards. The biggest complaint for players not playing Modern or Legacy is the cost. It's not really an excuse because Standard is more expensive, it just takes planning and a little effort. You can do it!
Thanks for reading,
DannyO
WizardDen.com
Seeing a banhammer is a fair point to bring up in modern, in legacy however this is almost a non-issue.
ReplyDeleteFor modern, you can usually say what is going to be banned by comparing it to the pillars and then looking at the expected cost/payout ratio of the card. For example let's look at deathrite shaman, the most recent card to get banned in modern.
First when looking at the stats of the card, a 1/2 for either a B or G is fairly decent by itself. After this you have to look a the abilities this little fella has to work with. First you have the ability to make mana, a 1/2 mana dork is already pretty good, but it can also come down for black mana instead of green making this guy super versatile. Next you have the ability to exile cards from either graveyard to either deal damage to an opponent or heal 2 points at a time. This basically makes all reanimator decks impossible to play.
So deathrite works with the fetches, and resists 1pt removal, and screws with the bin, and makes mana, and gains life, and deals 2pt damage unblockable. I don't know if this guy could be any better, unless they gave him the ability to either discard or destroy things.
In comparison, let's look at tarmogoyf.
His base stats are 0/1 for 1G. this is fairly bad, however his ability makes up for it. He is able to get +1+1 bigger for every TYPE of card in the graveyard. For those of you wondering how many that can be, there are 1 sorceries, 2 instants, 3 enchantments, 4 lands, 5 creatures, 6 planeswalkers, 7 artifacts, 8 Tribal. So Tarmogoyf could be a 8/9 for 1G. That is just insane, however the chance of him being this is fairly low, hoe usually comes down as either a 4/5 or a 5/6. He also doesn't have any combat tricks like Trample, Haste, or Vigilance to make him an unstoppable force. He also has no built in way to save himself from removal lit regenerate or Pro/X, making him not unkillable, his saving grace is the fact that bolt and electrolyze can't usually kill him, so he is resistant to the most played removal cards.
So tarmogoyf can get big breaking the mana curve by 6+ stages, however he usually will by 2-3 stages. He is killable and loses to a well timed Relic of progenitus. He works well with inquisition and fetches making him a 3-4 on turn 2, the same as a 3/3 haste on turn 3, not to shabby. And finally he comes down for 1G making him playable in anything able to make 1 G mana. He is a force to be reckoned with, however he does not make the game unplayable for certain archetypes. He does not singlehandedly change the game by being there, and for the most part, the deck has to be built around Tarmogoyf, he doesn't just slide in with no effort, you have to be playing fetches, cantrips and possibly hand control for him to really shine. This put's tarmogoyfs likelihood of being banned fairly low.