Here's the deck list. Lots of trash talking on Twitter because it lacks Marsh Flats, but you get over $200 worth of cards, 3 Path to Exile, 2 Inquisition, and 2 Dismember which are format staples for lots of decks along with an Elspeth and a Sword of Feast and Famine. Doesn't seem like too bad of a deal for someone that got into the game at Theros or will be getting into the game next year and is now looking to try Modern.
4 Caves of Koilos
2 City of Brass
4 Isolated Chapel
5 Plains
4 Swamp
1 Vault of the Archangel
4 Windbrisk Heights
2 Soul Warden
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Honor of the Pure
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Lingering Souls
3 Path to Exile
4 Raise the Alarm
2 Shrine of Loyal Legions
4 Spectral Procession
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Zealous Persecution
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Sideboard
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Dismember
3 Duress
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
3 Relic of Progenitus
Here is a link to a cool experiment with the deck playing at a Modern FNM:
http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/20...hero-prologue/
Last edited by Timber; 05-23-2014 at 01:58 PM.
That looks like a completely reasonable deck to play if you want to get into Modern. I think it's only $75, and it'll tide you over until you're able to get something better.
I think the deck is taking a lot of flak because the mana base is mostly a joke. City of Brass is a little questionable in a 2-color deck. Isolated Chapel and Caves of Koilos are fine, I guess...but good luck being even remotely competitive with your Windbrisk Heights and Isolated Chapel draw. I certainly didn't expect Marsh Flats or anything, but they could have at least gone with a couple Godless Shrines instead of the Cities of Brass since they make Isolated Chapel come in untapped more often and are much more valuable in terms of someone starting out in the format. They're laso much better in terms of not literally killing yourself to cast your spells. As it is most things are going to end up costing you at least 1 life to cast depending on your draw.
It just feels like they phoned in that part of the design pretty hard.
It's really not that bad for $75. It's tier 2 competitive and definitely something that you can see going 2-2/3-1 at FNM. Could it be even better? Sure, but I don't think they were looking to release the optimal list, just looking to provide people a reasonably competitive deck that you could sleeve up out of the box and probably win a couple matches.
If I was a Standard player looking to jump into Modern, but didn't want to sink $700 in Affinity up to $1,500 for UWR/Pod, then this $75 deck is exactly what I'd want.
There would be a bunch of people complaining regardless of what's in the deck, but from a playing perspective that deck looks pretty decent. Most decks they print are filled with downgrades and only really the manabase is for this one. Path to Exile, Lingering Souls, even a sword of Feast & Famine? That's pretty respectable. The sideboard even has Kataki, Dismember, BFTs, ghost quarter, it's like a real deck made to play against the formats other real decks.
It also allows people to easily upgrade the deck. Lands go to other lands, obviously, but Duress -> Thoughtseize, Shrine -> planeswalker/ Hero of bladehold/ Bob/ other trump card. It's a pretty well made deck for the money. I'd be really happy if they made more of this type so players could get into tokens/ UR storm/ Twin/ control/ etc.
I agree with aforementioned comments. I think the Caves are meh, but if you're serious enough about the game to get into Modern, then I think you'd already have Godless Shrines or you'd be able to trade for them.
Most of the complaining I've seen so far has been:
1. No reprints of high-cost cards to increase supply - I think this is the weakest argument. If the deck had a Marsh Flats or Bitterblossom, the $75 MSRP would be a joke and then we're right back to the cost as a barrier to entry problem.
2. The deck is not tier - while I think there's something to say about taking the event deck to a local Modern event, getting killed by a tier 1 deck and feeling like you wasted $75, I don't think many people expect to take the Event Deck as is to a serious event and beat up on the top decks in the format. Event Decks have never been that way, why should the Modern one be any different?
I think they did a decent job with the deck to keep it at MSRP and increase access to some format staples...minus the manabase. I think 5 basics and a Fetid Heath would have been better than the Cities and Caves for a lot of reasons.
This Event Deck looks perfect for the introductory FNM level of Modern. Sure, you have your tier 1 Melira Pod masters at FNM, but you also see Boggles, Infect, brews, etc. This is really no different than those tier 2 decks and it only costs $75, so if someone doesn't like Modern, they didn't spend a ton of money to come to that conclusion. This is obviously meant to incentivize players to join Modern, not to gild seasoned Modern players' pockets with trade bait.
The full-fledged version is. This is not.Originally Posted by Arsenal
Despite that, for the MSRP it's totally okay and perfectly reasonable for FNM.
Everybody that has been knocking the deck seems to forget this. 90% of the arguments I am seeing that it is "bad" is because of this reason. If you are a forum poster, chances are you are not the target customer. If you want to get your buddies into Modern, and want to be able to spend <$100 to give them a deck to borrow, then THIS is the product for you. Like everyone said, swap a few lands, maybe drop an extra 3-6 cards you have in your binder in, and you have a full Tier 2 deck. Then you can go crush with Pod, and not feel bad since your buddy can still 3-2 and event.
I wish they had done two Event Decks, which I think would have been more interesting for prospective players, as they would've had more of a choice on what to enter the format with. One of the things I liked about the old Preconstructed Decks or even the current Standard Event Decks is that they give you several options to choose from so you can pick one that's to your liking, whereas with just one it doesn't give you the choice.
As for the deck itself, it's decent enough; the manabase could've been a little better, but it's still okay. The sideboard, while not the best possible, is actually assembled with a surprising degree of competency.
I do wish they had used the opportunity to bring back Bitterblossom, though. It would've fit pretty well into the deck.
I really dislike this product. It's a tacit admission that, yes, the secondary market factors highly into Wizard's design and development process. And, more despairingly, the secondary market seems to have control over what Wizards does and doesn't do. They're afraid to print things because of the insane amounts of monetary value attributed to certain pieces of colored cardboard; something that's not conducive to the health of the game.
Plus, ~$70 for a product that likely costs no more to produce than the typical ~$10 precons simply smacks the sensibilities harshly.
It's rather lamentable that Wizards didn't create/design some decks chock full o' expensive cards. Print them to high heaven and flood the market. Crash the value of a tier deck (or two) and introduce actual risk to speculating on Magical Cards. Take the game back and give it to the players, not the hedge fund wizards.
Oh well.
Buy 1, sell all the cards to double your money. Buy 2, sell all the cards to double your money. Buy 4, sell 3 decks to (x-1)*2 your money. Take your money and buy everything else you need to make the deck tier 1.
According to TCG Player, the total value of the cards in the deck are about $125 (I'm using the Low price). If anything, $75 might be a bit low, so there's a good chance we'll see markups.
Here's a question: What did you expect them to price it at? If they MSRP'd it at $10, then it would still be sold for much higher prices than that. $75 is an amount people might actually sell it for.
I'm not fond of how reluctant Wizards of the Coast has been to reprint things and think they need to do more in that area (such as, say, not giving Modern Masters such a ridiculously small print run), but going full steam in the other direction is probably an even bigger mistake.It's rather lamentable that Wizards didn't create/design some decks chock full o' expensive cards. Print them to high heaven and flood the market. Crash the value of a tier deck (or two) and introduce actual risk to speculating on Magical Cards. Take the game back and give it to the players, not the hedge fund wizards.
I totally agree with this.
One of the things forgotten by those that criticize the product for its lack of reprints is that vendors will ignore the MSRP and mark it way up, see Modern Masters booster boxes. I'm a big proponent of WotC doing something to regulate the secondary market, its speculators, and #mtgfinance, but I don't think massive, knee-jerk reprints is part of the solution.
I think it could sell comfortably at a $20 MSRP given a high enough print run; Duel Decks and Commander Precons typically contain 200+% "value", but stay at the MSRP because the product isn't highly limited. The only counterexamples here are things like Mind Seize, which was more due to the way that Commander decks were distributed (retailers had to buy them in "sets" and couldn't just purchase more of the hot sellers) as well as the fact that one deck contained an absolute monstrosity of a Legacy staple and this was the only printing...ever. With only one deck, and all reprints, I don't think this product would skyrocket over a $20 MSRP given a print run similar to the Commander/Duel Decks.
Still, no matter the validity of my previous assertion it's still a damn shame that the secondary market factors so much into the design of products.
At some point they need to lay the hammer down if they want the game to thrive down the road. Risk needs to be introduced into the market of Magical Cards, elsewise we're going to have ever-inflating bubbles and more panic buyouts at every spoiler season or top 8 announcement.I'm not fond of how reluctant Wizards of the Coast has been to reprint things and think they need to do more in that area (such as, say, not giving Modern Masters such a ridiculously small print run), but going full steam in the other direction is probably an even bigger mistake.
It's not a pre-con though, it's an Event Deck with 8+ rares, 2 mythic rares and 7 uncommon format staples, not to mention card sleeves. You're just being silly that it would go for $20 MSRP.
This isn't Yu-Gi-O and the reprint policy shouldn't be treated as such. You're right that WotC needs to add more risk to MtG speculation, but what you're proposing is ridiculous and I think you know that.
EDIT: typo
I'm hoping that Wizards decides to continue releasing these. These decks are a fantastic starting point for newcomers to the format. Just think what $100-$200 could do for this deck in terms of making it more competitive.
I've seen what this can do first hand. A guy at my LGS that's been playing Standard and casually for a year bought the event deck on Friday and played a couple games with it after the Standary FNM. He loved it. He's totally into Modern now.
I wanted to see how the deck would actually do, so on a whim I opted to buy it and play it in our weekly Modern event. The result was I went 2-2, which I think is fairly decent. Granted, one of my wins was against a deck that seemed like a suboptimal Standard deck so that may not count for much, but even the losses I think I could have won had I played more intelligently (I had literally never played the deck before so I feel I didn't play as well as I could have).
Funnily enough, someone else there was playing a modified version of the deck. I don't know exactly what changes they made other than them having Godless Shrines, Thoughtseizes, and a few fetchlands, though. They went 3-1.
So on the whole I think the deck actually is pretty decent. The lack of shocklands and Thoughtseizes is a bit conspicuous, but both cards are currently Standard legal so they're not terribly hard to find. I think it really does fulfill its job as a good gateway into the format. BW Tokens may not be the strongest deck in the format, but my personal view is that any deck that can Day 2 a Grand Prix is a worthwhile deck, and a few Tokens decks did make it in the last Modern GP to Day 2.
By the way, Hipsters of the Coast is doing a thing they're calling "Modern Hero" where someone buys the deck and keeps playing it in their store's weekly Modern tournament, each week spending no more than $10 to improve it. You can see their progress so far here. It's pretty interesting.
I posted a link to this last week or two weeks ago, but the post was deleted. Strange. I liked the idea by Hipsters of the Coast.
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