On mythics and money

Max McCall recently wrote an article about mythics here. His argument, as a whole, is sound, but I have a few points I want to add.

Firstly, cards are worth whatever people are willing to pay for them. This has always been, and always will be true. But, mythics mess with the standard dynamic.

We are all aware of the standard dynamic - a new set is released, certain cards get hyped, and thus their prices rise. Other cards are not perceived to be as strong and thus languish in dollar bins. Usually, in a couple months, the tournament scene plays itself out, and that assists in helping cards settle into more stable values. There have been examples of card that have held their value well (Umezawa's Jitte), sleeper hits (here's looking at you, Tarmogoyf), and over-hyped cards that ended up not doing much (sadly, Mr. Finkel, this applies to you).

The problem is mythics mess with the price fluctuations by artificially inflating demand. Consider the following scenario - your buddy and you crack a case of boosters. Let us further suppose the two of you open eight copies of a money rare and four copies of a money mythic between the two of you (the statistical 2:1 ratio of rares:mythics).

On women in Magic

Recently Lauren Lee and Lauren Rae Orsini wrote articles on the subject of why more women don't play Magic. Their posts are here and here respectively. I thought I'd weigh in on the subject.

Magic is, in many ways, the perfect storm of anti-womaness.

On Role-players

Every single card in every single deck must justify its slot. When deciding "how many of this card should I play?" the most common response should be zero. Let's take a further look at some basic deck construction theory regarding card selection.

There are, in general, three overarching roles cards can play within your deck:

Completely uncuttable, generally good/useful, metagamed

The Basics of Deck Design, and why Planeswalkers don't fit in Mythic

Welcome to the inaugural post of Careful Study, a blog that will focus on the study of MTG Theory, with practical applications to existing formats and decks.

Everyone who plays magic builds decks, but very few people take the time to actually think about what they are doing when they search through the voluminous lists in gatherer, trying to find that perfect card for their deck. Each card within a deck serves a larger purpose, and by understanding that larger purpose, a player is better equipped to analyze the deck and make beneficial changes. This post will discuss what I think are the basic tenets of deck construction.

Navigating the Card Pool: A Deckbuilder’s Compass

What is the plan of a deck? Every Magic player that has ever built a deck is able to answer this question. Is your plan to put a bunch of enchantments in your graveyard and cast Replenish? Is your plan to stick a big giant fattie in the graveyard and reanimate it? Is your plan to beat your opponent really hard with one giant man? These are generally fairly easy questions to answer.

What is important to realize is that each given game-plan can be executed in a variety of manners, and the methodology behind this execution is as important to the success of a deck as solidity of the game-plan itself. It is this methodology that most players fail to consider. Understanding this methodology provides a framework for understanding card choices, and thus gives the player the ability to improve upon the deck by finding cards that fulfill the appropriate methodology better.

Decks are constructed on essentially two axes - Power vs. Consistency and Explosiveness vs. Resiliency.