Tenhauser:
Yet they seem to love Delver... That Miracle.

Giovanni:
Lots of traveling then, eh? I'm sort of jelly, I'm restricted to the southeastern U.S. events financially. I agree with your standard assessment, however. On the bright side, it's still not last year! Dat CawBlade. I may try some of the standard events, just with some home-brew monstrosity. But I do not think I can take the format seriously at the moment.
What will you be running in legacy? I'm considering Tendrils, either Past in Flames or Ad Nauseum, but Delver looks pretty strong right now. I'd run thresher, but dont have any goyfs -_-

 

Delver isn't control. It's an agro/tempo deck, both the standard and legacy versions of it.

 

I mean, I buy/sell cards so I basically have my whole summer planned out as a giant card-buying road trip. The tournaments are manageable since I can couch surf for the events (and thus avoid paying absurd amounts for hotels.)

If I were making a Legacy deck from scratch, I'd make some sort of Delver Burn (U/R) or Burn. Thresh is absurdly overrated -- just play a slower version of Affinity and jam Force of Will into your sideboard (you have the blue count to support it.) You'll be a better creature deck with a better late game, and an awesome matchup against Thresh/RUG Delver. Storm is boring. In case you can't tell, I run Affinity in Legacy. You have some matchups that are just about un-winnable (Belcher, Reanimator, TES), but you have reasonable matchups against everyone else and you can race High Tide.

Also my prerelease went insanely well. I finished 7-0-1 -- my pool was pretty terrible, so I went with my old standby of "when in doubt, make a deck of Grizzley Bears." In this case it was BRG burn featuring Burn At The Stake. Fun fact, people really don't like it when you burn them out from 20+ through a combination of Essence Harvest and Burn At The Stake. Tilted the fuck out of my 7th Round opponent.

 

Came in 17th at my prerelease with a U/W soulbond deck. Kinda weak.

 

Nice. You going to be hitting up stores for overstock, or just looking for specific things/good deals?

 

Combination of overstock and Craigslist. Today I'm buying a complete set of Arabian Nights and 80,000 cards. Tomorrow I'm buying another 40k bulk and the day after a really sweet collection. Flipping these is going to be fun. The only real debate is whether or not I resell as repacks.

Schrodinger, what was your pool?

 

Repacks are iffy. You'll probably be able to sell them to the casual crowd easily enough. Your best bet would be to only do a limited amount, and make the price point attractive enough for another trade grinder to pick them all up at once. Rinse and repeat until all the bulk, carefully picked over for all the juicy uncommons like Maze of Ith, Standstill, and Wasteland, is gone.

You might be able to sell the complete set of Arabian Nights for 1.5K+ on ebay, or for 800-900 to a store depending on the condition of the cards.

If you happen to run across a test print foil of Survival of the Fittest, a local shop owner I know would probably want it.

 

I honestly don't remember most of it, and have already put most of it away, but my seven soul bonders were: Silverblade Paladin, Nearheath pilgrim, 2 gateguards, Galvanic Alchemist, Tandem Lookout, and Wingcrafter.
I could have done better f I hadn't gotten shittily manascrewed in two rounds.

 

Tenhauser, yeah I'm having a lot of fun picking through the bulk I picked up. So far I've pulled out five of the Serra Angel/Time Elemental misprints -- three of which are NM. I mean I've pulled out other sweet stuff too, but those are by far the most awesome. The Arabian Nights set is Near Mint on everything except the Bazaar which is EX+ (slight edge wear in one spot.) Either way, I had one hell of a time actually paying for the cards since my bank decided that my frequent withdrawals counted as "suspicious activity." Luckily, I was able to get the branch manager on the phone through a combination of threatening to move my savings account (way more than someone my age has a right to) to a different bank, and by being legitimately annoyed.

They were still an hour too late, so I'm obviously switching anyway. As for the foil test print of Survival, you'll have to let me know which city the shop owner is in. There's one dealer who I refuse to do business with for any reason.

 

Portland. Rivals Fantasy Games.

Damn. One of these?



I'm interested. Need any Wastelands?

 

I PM'd you the response, but yeah. It's a pretty sweet misprint.

 

Hey Gio Ive been meaning to ask you for a while, Im working on my Elf deck right now and all tournament legality aside what would you recommend? Im currently running

Wellwisher x3 (Hope to go to 4 as soon as I can find another one)
Vigor x2
Wildslayer Elves x1 (Placeholder)
Rancor x3
Elvish Promenade x3 (Hope to go to 4 as soon as I can find another one)
Thornweald Archer x3
Shield of the Oversoul x4
Brambledwood Paragon x3
Imperious Perfect x3
Presence of Gond x1
Llanowar Elves x4
Blanchwood Armor x2
Timberwatch Elf x2
Priest of Titania x3
Immaculate Magistrate x1 (Absolutely Want More)
Safehold Elite x1
Wrens Run Vanquisher x1 (Just a filler until I can find a replacement)

I know it isnt the greatest by any stretch but Im looking for advice on what would be the best to swap in.

 

Run combo Elves. This list finished 8th at SCG Phoenix. The mana base is a bit pricy, but there are ways to work around that by running a different combo package (just Glimpse for storm count/infinite mana going for the grapeshot kill so you don't need to spend 170 on 2 Savannahs.) The second deck is less robust, but it's pretty sweet anyway.

Otherwise, if you're playing Elves, this is what I ran for a while during the last Standard season:

4x Llanowar Elves
4x Arbor Elves
4x Elvish Archdruid
3x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1x Nissa Revane
2x Nissa's Chosen
3x Eldrazi Monument
2-4x Garruk, Wildspeaker (depending on the meta)
4x Copperhorn Scout
1x Ulamog
3x Green Sun's Zenith (post-MBS)

Then another few spells (mostly creatures) entirely depending on the meta. That shell always wanted another 4 or so Lords, but there weren't any in Standard at the time. If you're looking for a fun elf deck that isn't built for a competitive environment, I'd start with something like that shell.

(I also, at one point, shoved Jin-Gitaxias into an Elf shell for lots of lulz.)

 

Hmm definitely going to have to look all of these, thank you for the list. Im just getting back into it recently.

 

Might want to consider this big fatty from Avacyn as another finisher.

 

I don't really like Behemoth in place of Regal Force or that stupid card with persist that nukes permanents. Feels like much more of an over-costed win more card, whereas if you use Ezuri you can split it up over two turns.

 

So, I've confirmed that I'm still a compulsive gambler, and opened two boxes of Avacyn at the release tonight.

Ended up with a Foil Temporal Mastery first box - of course I didn't think I could do better.
Second box, I got a Foil Temporal Mastery and a Tamiyo in the same pack.

 

Nice. Make sure to unload the Masteries before people realize they are unplayable in Standard and their value crashes. So far I've opened a box of Avacyn Restored (prize from my prerelease), and pulled a grand total of 0 Cavern of Souls. Have to say, I'm kind of annoyed.

 

The caverns are pretty rare, I think. I opened over 100 packs between everything and only got one. To compare, in the same packs I opened 3 vexing devils, which are supposed to be the same rarity.

I threw the Masteries onto ebay - is there any reason they're unplayable in standard? Are they banned?

 

They aren't banned, they are just bad. The majority of the times you draw them, it will not be a "miracle," and the majority of the times you "miracle" them, it will just be like casting an explore. So, when you really want the extra turn, most of the time you'll be spending 7 mana to do it.

Unplayable.

Formats with Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, JTMS, Sylvan Library, and Mirri's Guile, on the other hand ;-)