To pay (for FNM), or not to pay?

Inspired by a raging Facebook debate about the merits and pitfalls of charging entry fees for Friday Night Magic (FNM), I’ve decided to write my opinions in a more cohesive manner. I think there are a lot more factors than just the dollar value of an entry fee that make people for or against a small nominal fee to enjoy the game they love at their local gaming store (LGS).

IT’S NOT CONCEIT, IT’S EXPERIENCE

First a little bit about me so you know where I’m coming from: I’m no “droolie”. I have a lot of cards (in fact, I just picked up my 2^nd Library of Alexandria today… score!), and I’m more than capable of winning a local FNM, and do so frequently. I’m not normally willing to travel so don’t compete in as many “real competitive” tournaments as I’d like to, but even at the medium level tournaments like Game Day I placed 3-4^th at Worlds Away and 2^nd at LA Mood in an environment when people brought their “A” game. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m a decent player with the full card pool available, so I’m not writing this from the point of view of someone who’s just starting out and only has an event deck in their arsenal. I’ve been playing Magic for 17 years, hell, I’d BETTER be at least “OK” by this point!

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SIDEBAR: Damn, did anyone else know about the band “Imaginary Dragons”? They are REALLY good! I can’t believe I just discovered them today due to (of all things) one of those annoying vevo advertisements while trying to listen to Blondie: “I Touch Myself” on YouTube (don’t judge me! Lol) Give them a listen to, you won’t be disappointed!

Here’s a good one to start at: “Radioactive”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktvTqknDobU

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DOES OUR LGS DEFINE US?

Back on topic. I’ve played at most of the stores in London (Worlds Away, LA Mood, Imperial Hobbies, Freshers) but I still need to make it to “The Game Chamber” (One day Tim! One day!) which is the store that started this entire kerfuffle by daring to ask the question: “Would you pay to play at an FNM”?

There are pros and cons both ways, and to be honest I’m fairly impartial. I play at Imperial Hobbies on Friday because it’s clean (not saying the other stores aren’t!), the players are friendly, and it’s closest in proximity to my bar of choice: Ale House (1/2 price apps after 8pm and $12 pitchers of Keiths… hard to beat that deal!).

Now back in the day I can’t say that I didn’t have a problem with certain individuals who would cause undue drama. Rule sharking at FNMs, arguing with each other and generally causing a negative vibe for those who just wanted to sling some cardboard and reminisce the good old days when they were trading dual lands for Sorceress Queens. I feel that those people in question have “grown” a lot in the past few years and that the stereotypes that many associate with them don’t necessarily apply anymore. Regardless of past “sins”, certain stores have also developed stereotypes; whether it’s that their full of sharks, full of newbies, full of rules lawyers, whatever. People associate certain stores with a certain level or tier of gaming already, and would having an entry fee really change any of that? I personally believe that store loyalty is a huge factor and that if a store suddenly decided to charge $5, I doubt it would greatly affect their player base. As one poster pointed out we’re paying hundreds of dollars for a deck… what’s another $5 to play it and support your LGS? Maybe that can be considered a callous attitude, but it’s realistic. This isn’t a cheap hobby. We’re not playing tiddly-winks or jax where all you need is a bouncy ball and a few pieces of plastic here… this is the big times where you’re paying $4 a pop for 15 random cards. I’d go so far as to say that it’s the minority who CAN afford to play magic but CAN’T afford to pay a token nominal fee to actually play somewhere.

So could it be that it isn’t so much an entry fee that they may have a problem with, but what it may cause?

COMPETITION = A BAG OF DICKS?

Lately my only negative magic experiences have been when there is a prize on the line. Even I can be a bit of a jerk when I really want to win, and I doubt that there’s anyone out there who’s so saintly they can say they haven’t been at least a little “vocal” about a loss, or said something akin to “no takebacks” or “sorry, you forgot” when they’re fighting for first place and a prize… even if that prize is just a crappy FNM foil card. Now if you’ve got 20 people who’ve each paid $5 into a pool and you’re looking at first place getting $50 credit, 2^nd earning $20, 3^rd – 4^th getting $10 each and the last $10 spent on door prizes that competitive nature is sure to show up more often, and be compounded. This “fun game” you started off intending to play has suddenly become a stressful event where REL level 0 gets thrown out the window and you’re playing in your own little mini pro-tour every Friday. Those who are adverse to conflict will naturally gravitate to a less competitive (read: less hostile) environment, perhaps abandoning the game altogether because “it’s just not worth getting into fights over”. Again this may be a minority, but people are people, and it takes all of us to form a community.

It’s also been expressed that people feel that they’d just be “giving away” their entry fee to the better players, the ones who consistently win every week. They think “I have no chance of winning, so why bother”? The counter point to that seems to be that experienced players “teach” the beginners by beating them down week after week. Sure, you can learn some interesting card interactions and obscure rules when you’re facing a “local pro”, but oftentimes it comes down to them playing a Rubblebelt Raiders ($1) and the “pro” playing a Huntmaster of the Fells ($30). Them playing a Terramorphic Expanse ($0) and the “pro” playing a shockland ($10+).

I honestly feel that the above statement is a fallacy.

HAVING GOOD CARDS DOESN’T MAKE YOU A GOOD PLAYER

You can most certainly buy yourself every card in that SCG open winning decklist and still go 0-X. There is a reason why some players not only win a lot of FNMs, but also seem to consistently win at sealed and drafts where all the cards are random, not just a big pile of mythics and gold.

·         Experience and knowing how to play.

·         Understanding the mana curve.

·         The nature of control / midrange / aggro decks.

·         Holding cards and bluffing.

·         Taking damage instead of blocking.

·         Not overcommitting into boardwipe.

·         Making 2-for-1’s.

·         Planning for the environment and metagame.

·         Knowing the rules.

This is just the tip of the iceberg that is the knowledge that better players have to impart on the newer ones.

Now if those newer players never get the chance to play against the better ones, how are they to learn? Is it worth paying that $5 in order to lose so that in the long term you win because you learn to play better? Is it better to pay, play, lose, and learn… or simply to continue making the same mistakes over and over because of an inbred playgroup that doesn’t understand that saving a Searing Spear for killing a creature when your opponent goes to recast that Rancor would be a better play than letting the Rancor resolve and spearing it after?

I think we can all agree that it’s beneficial to play against better players so that you DO get to learn about all of the above.

WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO?

In the end you have to ask yourself: “Why do I play magic”?

Am I playing just to have some fun with a few friends and test out weird and wacky decks, or am I in it to win it? Do I take pleasure from seeing my pet deck go 1-X, or do I leave disgusted unless I put up a minimum X-1 record?

Different people have different reasons for playing. Personally, I like to win with decks that people haven’t seen before, but that doesn’t mean I’m not packing them full of Restoration Angels and Thragtusks. I take a great amount of pride in knowing that the Jund list I posted months ago is almost identical to the ones that people are now starting to say is the most “consistent”! THAT is worth more to me than winning, and I continue to move on to other new decks because I enjoy the challenge. Others may just play the “best deck” all season. Others may just love Pack Rat and want to jam it into everything they build. Heck, my buddy Dobbs is working on a Biovisionary deck and I’m sure he doesn’t expect to X-0 every tournament with it!

Now would Dobbs pay $5 and still use said Biovisionary deck? Not likely. That’s when he’d break out his Grull blitz deck and smash face.

THE LGS EVOLUTION EXPERIMENT

I would love to see a well-established store try and break the status quo and run an FNM while charging $5, because here’s how I think that would work:

1)      That store would LOSE a few players who feel that they have no chance of winning.

2)      That store would LOSE a few players who don’t want to spend the $5.

3)      That store would GAIN a few players who feel they could win and want a better prize.

4)      That store would GAIN a few players who don’t play right now because it’s a “waste of time”.

5)      That store would draw the more competitive players.

So they’d lose a few, gain a few, and become the “competitive” store.

I feel there’s opportunity here! In fact, I think it would actually get MORE people playing magic! It makes sense and here’s why:

The players who leave that store would still play, but somewhere else. BUT there would be the influx of players who’ve always existed, but didn’t want to bother playing 5 hrs of magic for minimal reward. So you’re actually getting MORE people out to play, they’re just spread out!

Could this be a win-win situation for our little community? Could a store take the reins and become the “training ground” for competitive players, while those who just want to have fun still get to do so?

… It really gives you something to think about, doesn’t it?

GREAT RISK, GREAT REWARD?

Now do I think that every store is suited to run with this tournament model? Obviously not. But do I think there are a few stores here in London that could pull it off? I sure do. And what’s the harm in experimenting? It’s not like you couldn’t just switch back in the unlikely event that attendance drops to zero. We’re all so connected via social media these days it wouldn’t be hard to take a month and test it out… you may have some “unexpected results”!

This can of worms has been opened on a public forum and the 91 replies (and counting) show a divided community. The gauntlets been thrown. 10 paces have been counted. Someone’s been slapped in the face with a flaccid leather glove.

The balls in your court store owners, the future is yet unwritten…

Me? I just want my cheap wings and beer and the company of my crew. :P

Cheers,

Carl Szalich

Going Deep and the SCG Effect

A TID-BIT ABOUT PRIME SPEAKER ZEGANA

In my previous article I talked a little bit about Prime Speaker Zegana and how I thought she was good but situational, and that situational is often bad. Seems like I’ve been put in my place as her upside overshadows the occasional time when she’s a “1/1 draw 1 for 6”, as there are results to back her up!

I think a lot of people were skeptics like me and thought that her variance made her undesirable and that kept her price deflated… until now.

Although I wasn’t yet appreciating the broken things she could do, my friend Eric informed me that a deck called “Prime Speaker Bant” (piloted by Andrew Shrout) took first place at a Star City Classic on 3/3/2013 and was running her as a 3x main. I still thought to myself “Meh, I guess she’s OK then, I mean it IS the ONLY blue spell (main) in his deck so there has to be SOME merit behind it.”

Here’s a link to his deck so you can see for yourself:

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=53580

Now I like to speculate on cards almost as much as I enjoy playing, and when a Mythic rare starts showing up as 3x main in big tournament winning decks, I take notice from a financial standpoint if not a playing one. She seemed reasonably priced at $5 on eBay, so I picked up 2x playsets for $43 shipped. Worst case scenario she’d already been showing up on some buylists for $4 so I’d be down $11 overall. Not a huge risk, and I’m in profit city should they explode.

I think it’s important to remember that rares have a hard time holding significant value due to the quantity that are opened. You are far more likely to open a Boros Reckoner than a Prime Speaker Zegana. The odds of getting a Mythic Rare in a pack are 1:8 so in a big set like Gatecrash with 15 mythics and 53 rares, that means that the odds of getting any particular Mythic Rare in a pack of gatecrash are 1:120.

That’s right. You open 1 Prime Speaker Zegana every 120 packs… or about every 3.33 boxes. That means that to get those 3x Prime Seakers you need to open 3.33 x 3 = 10 boxes. That’s a lot of boosters that need to be opened for just 1 person to play a Prime Speaker Bant! And now that the deck is “a real thing” I’ll bet a lot MORE people are going to want to play it which means either crack 10 boxes or pay the piper based on its rarity / demand.

A JONATHAN MEDINA STORY (AKA WHY HE’S THE MAN!)

Big props to Jonathan Medina and his site www.legitmtg.com. Since I’m Canadian it’s hard for me to use TCG player so I often hit up Jon’s site when I need to make a bulk order. He had a nice stack of PSZ (<- that’s right, she’s getting the BBE / FOW abbreviation treatment lol) listed @ $7, which was about what eBay was closing at so I bookmarked the deal and did a little more snooping before coming back to him.

I hit refresh… and his price was up to $14.99.

What the?!? Seemed like what I was guessing the price would RISE to, but at the time it was more than double what I could pay elsewhere. I closed the browser window and chuckled to myself.

“Well played Mr. Medina… well played.”

This morning I had a little discussion with him on Facebook about Prime Speaker Zegana and he said that he’d raised the price to where he thought it would fall after the weekend. Lo and behold, SCG raised their price to 14.99 this morning as well.

I jokingly mentioned that I was a hair trigger away from buying him out of his stock @ $7 and he replied:

“I would have shipped them all too! :P”

Jonathan Medina = a class act.

BACK IN SCG LA-LA LAND

Over the weekend at the most recent Star City Games (Indianapolis: 774 players… a new SCG Open attendance record!) 3 of the top 8 decks were running Prime Speaker, so at this point she HAD to be good.

From a speculator standpoint, I didn’t wait to see if one of them won the entire event or not (it didn’t) before buying more. Just the fact that there were 9x main deck Zegana in the T8 was enough for me to go deep. I bought 2x more playsets @ $26 each… the price was already increasing since Friday.

I then hit up my LGS’s and picked up those I could find at their then current value of $7. If I’m willing to buy online for $6.5, I can support my locals for $7. I find getting the QUANTIITY I need locally is often the problem, not the pricing. They didn’t exactly have the 30+ I was looking for just sitting in their cabinets waiting for me to come buy them all lol.

SPIKES AND RIPPLES

Another friend of mine (Sigmund Ausfresser @sigfig8 on Twitter, a QS writer) is not so sure on buying in. He just posted to my FB a valid point:

Sigmund: “There are over 100 under $10 [on TCGplayer]. You think they’ll be bought up so quickly? Not so sure… highest buy price still hasn’t moved. Still $4…”

I told him I was writing an article on it so he’ll just have to wait for me to post this before getting my long winded reply. My hands are getting tired and my glasses are starting to hurt the bridge of my nose, so let’s get to the meat of the matter: Why I think she’s going up.

HAVE YOU MET MY PET ROBOT?

I remember in 1996 or so when I started playing magic that the only way to really gage prices was to buy a magazine called Scrye or later on, Inquest. Kids these days are all about newfangled technology like smart phones and websites that do all the work for them (Examples include www.mtgstocks.com, www.legitmtg.com & www.quietpspeculation.com). Almost every single LGS in my area uses SCG for pricing singles. This leads to a few interesting things that start happening:

From a LGS / Trade perspective:

1. LGS’s increase the prices of their cards to match SCG and start taking trade based on SCG. That means that as of today, I can expect to get trade in value for my PSZ = $15 – whatever % the store takes off. If that’s 33%, I’m still getting $10 each. If it’s 50%, I’m just above breaking even at $7.5.
2. Regular humans will now value PSZ @ $15 in trade. This means in trade when we both use SCG prices, I’ve already doubled up.

Now let’s see what this does from a buyer / speculator angle:

1. All of the sites that use JavaScript to crawl through SCG’s prices and compare yesterday’s value to today’s will show PSZ with a 100%+ price increase between Saturday Mar 09 and Today. This of course leads to a speculator feeding frenzy because no one likes to miss out on the “next big card” when it can still be had for “cheap” in some places. Which results in:
2. Speculators buying up all of the PSZ’s that were “underpriced” ($10 is only 66% what SCG is asking… what a deal amiright?). This inevitably leads to:
3. People who need the card not being able to find it for cheap because they’ve all been bought up so need to pay the new $15ish price which means that:

I call this second set of points “The SCG effect”.

From a player perspective:

1. The new price is $15ish… at least for a while until everyone gets their fill.

A BOMB IN A NUTSHELL

PSZ is a powerful card. Here’s the perfect storm that I believe will keep it high:

• The SCG effect
• It’s a big set mythic
• It’s a great commander Card
• It draws you cards
• It has results to back up its price

So that’s why I think Prime Speaker Zegana is going to get its bump and maintain it. Maybe not to $15 cash (I’m thinking $10-12 in real money), but doubtful it will ever sink back to $5-6.

So this article was about PSZ, but just as much an example of the thought process I use when I’m looking into going deep on card investing.

Remember that there are NO guarantees when you speculate!!! I can’t stress this enough. I’ve won big (Thundermaw Hellkite / Hellrider) and I’ve lost big (I’m looking at you 50+ copies of Hellion Crucible), but at all times I was prepared to accept a loss.

Heck, I could even still lose on the 30+ PSZs I’m holding! lol

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

I do NOT advocate speculating on cards If you can’t handle losing ALL of your $, because there is no guaranteed method to succeed. Watch trends and go with your guts. Because there will be tears… of joy, and sometimes sadness.

Cheers, and may all your PSZs enter play with a Thragtusk on board and a Restoration Angel in hand!

Carl Szalich

STANDARD DEKTEK – RUG Midrange

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HOLY VIDEO GAME INTERLUDES BATMAN!!

Has anyone else reading this ever played “Dragon Age: Origins”? If you have, then you probably know why I haven’t written in a while… it’s so good! I stopped playing video games for a long, long time and focused solely on collecting retro titles, but after beating DA:O (and its “Awakenings” expansion) I had to start on “Dragon Age 2” immediately. I’ve now conquered it, and am back on DA:O again for a second (comprehensive) play through that includes the downloadable content (found a copy of the game of the year edition for only $15 at EB games!). This will become my “cannon” storyline for when I inevitably replay DA2.

Oh Morrigan, look what you've done to me! :P

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BACK TO OUR REGULARILY SCHEDULED PROGRAM

If there’s anything you’ve picked up on in my DEKTEK series it’s that I love card advantage and life gain in such a heavy aggro meta. You’ve probably also noticed my fondness of the quality R/G spells that reoccur throughout my decks  in: Thragtusk, Huntmaster of the Fells, Thundermaw Hellkite & friends. It had been a while since I’d played anything with blue in it, and I was kinda missing my good friend Snapcaster so I had a crazy thought… why not just mix Snapper in with all my other favorite cards, throw in a few Izzet Charms and counterspells, bake for 45 minutes at 350 and see what happens??

Now I’m behind on my deck updates so this one that I’m posting went 8-1-1 over two 5 round FNM’s last month PRE-GATECRASH. There was no Boros Reckoner in the format so the deck was probably better at that time stamp, but there are new cards that came out (I’m looking at you Prime Speaker Zegana!) that would probably improve it as well so I’m not writing it off. If I had to choose between this and Naya though? Hmmm…

CARL SZALICH’S MIDRANGE RUG DECK

SPELLS (17)

2x Cyclonic Rift

4x Farseek

3x Mizzium Mortars

4x Searing Spear

4x Izzet Charm

CREATURES (14)

4x Snapcaster Mage

4x Daybreak Ranger

4x Huntmaster of the Fells

4x Thragtusk

3x Thundermaw Hellkite

LANDS (24)

2x Kessig Wolf Run

4x Sulfur Falls

4x Steam Vents

3x Rootbound Crag

3x Hinterland Harbor

2x Breeding Pool

2x Stomping Ground

2x Forest

1x Mountain

1x Island

Note: I added the Breeding Pools / Stomping Grounds after the fact, and if I had a 3^rd of each I’d probably add them as well in place of their Crag / Harbor bretheren.

SIDEBOARD (15)

3x Essence Scatter

2x Negate

3x Flames of the Firebrand

4x Counterflux

2x Garruk, Pimal Hunter

1x Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius

SIDEBOARDING STRATEGIES

By now you know the drill:

Bring in Flames (and possibly Essence Scatter depending on if you see Cavern of Souls) vs. aggro.

Bring in Garruks and other cards that complement the match vs. midrange.

Bring in Garruk, Counterflux, Niv-Mizzet and Negate vs. control.

ABOUT SIDEBOARDING…

I think I should write an article about how to properly prepare a sideboard, as although I know the theory, I haven’t been following it. Maybe by writing it all out it will help me actually follow through with making my sideboard the way it should be instead of throwing in a bunch of cards that are just “good in certain matchups” and that you don’t end up using, even when you end up in the match that you had intended!

WHAT WOULD I CHANGE TODAY?

My big thing these days is running 25 mana. When you’re trying to get snapper online (aka have 4 mana available) or cast one of the many 5 drops, that 25^th land is as strong as a super Saiyan Goku. I wish this deck had a “Bonfire of the Damned” or “Sphinxs’s Revelation” to dump all that mana into, but Kessig Wolf Run works just as well. In fact, that 25^th land should almost BE a 3^rd Kessig as I believe it’s important to trample over opposing Boros Reckoners and lingering soul tokens now more than ever. It would also help get us to that tricky 6-7 land mark where we can start overloading our Mizzium Mortars and Cyclonic Rifts. There haven’t really been any color issues with the mana base thusfar, so I think the fact that Wolf Run produces colorless is a non-issue.

I really want to like Prime Speaker Zegana for the dream for Thragtust -> Zegana draw 5 cards potential, but have a hard time justifying what could potentially end up as a 1/1 vanilla draw 1 for 6. If I had access to Restoration Angel I think she’d be better. Right now I’m on the fence about adding one just to test her out, but I’m not sure if I want to give up the consistency of true threats to play her.  I was originally running a Niv-Mizzet main but ended up taking it out because (bar having 8+ mana when you cast) it had no immediate enter the play effect. Prime Speaker DOES have an EtB effect, but it’s circumstantial. It all boils down to this question: Are EITHER of them as good as a Thundermaw Hellkite or Thragtusk?

THE SUM OF ALL TOTALS

I think that since Boros Reckoner has become such a huge part of the metagame that this deck may not be as well positioned as it once was, but still has a great deal of potential. Sure against a Reckoner you’ll sometimes get 2-for-1’d when you have to Searing Spear them, but at least you have an answer, and some CA of your own to get back in the game.

This deck is another aggro crusher, as the entire deck save Farseek and Thragtusk can be considered removal in some fashion or another. If you’re playing in a heavy aggro meta, this list is a fine choice. On my first tournament attempt with the deck I was running counterspells main, but found that my opponents always had a Caverns or two in play so abandoned that plan in favor of direct damage. There is nothing worse than holding an Essence Scatter and having your opponent T5 play a cavern naming beast then resolve a Thragtusk. I seriously wanted to shred and eat my Essence Scatter when that happened to me (Obv I’d remove it from its sleeve first though, what do I look like to you… a barbarian??).

AS AN ASIDE

I haven’t been totally useless this past little while. If you have a premium membership to www.quietspeculation.com I had another theory article published there about how to identify cards with future potential. It’s particularly relevant in this age of “OMG Daybreak Coronet went from $1 to $20 in a week!”.

Link: http://www.quietspeculation.com/2013/01/insider-investing-in-cards-with-potential/

‘Till next time, keep Abrupt Decaying those Reckoners in response to their Boros Charms!

Carl Szalich