Isleib Unplanned

Posted on May 8, 2012

This is a live article. I’m writing it in one sitting. I know where I’m starting the article, but I don’t know where it will end up. I’m starting with ten unopened booster packs, and when I need something to talk about, I’ll open a booster, list its contents, and work on a topic from there. I also have an Oreo milkshake and a song running through the headphones: “Seaweeds Corporate” by Aes Dana, which is on my Bant playlist. That’s about as much as I know right now. Occasionally, I’ll use italics for flashbacks . . .

May 2000: I’m sitting in a bed & breakfast while on holiday in the UK with my parents. They had us pay by the person, not by the room, so when another room opened up, I got it all to myself. Freedom! I turn on the television, and some show called Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned is playing. Their theme song is mostly just them and a gathering crowd singing, “It’ll never work!” And the show really is unplanned—it’s David Baddiel and Frank Skinner sitting on a sofa on stage, taking questions from the audience, talking about their day, and having a random audience member take notes on a huge pad. It’s hilarious. When I go back to the States, I know there won’t be anything this cool. I also take in They Think It’s All Over, with some guy I’ve never heard of called Jonathan Ross. I’ve never liked sightseeing much anyway, but now I want to devote the rest of the holiday to watching British television.

British humour seems to emphasize wit, whereas American humor not only drops a “u” but seems to emphasize the big laugh. I’m oversimplifying, but the UK is sort of the Johnny to the US’s Timmy. Covert versus overt; subversive to in-your-face; laid-back to intense—it’s a different mindset and gets different results.

Avacyn Restored, as did Rise of the Eldrazi, feels like American humor to me. The set shouts, “HERE ARE SOME BIG FLYING THINGS! WE HAVE MADE THEM PLAYABLE!” The prerelease says there’s more subtlety than the set—or even Wizards employees—alludes to.

Soulbond in particular is layered and complex. One of the hardest decisions all day is how to handle an opponent’s soulbonded creatures. If Hanweir Lancer is giving first strike to a 5/5, and my opponent has cards in hand, do I kill the Lancer or the 5/5? The next creature with first strike might be far worse, but the 5/5’s already bad. There were a number of decisions like that all day on both sides of the table, and that should give the set decent replay value moving forward. It should work out decently for your decks as well, whether you build around soulbond creatures or just use them for value in your other decks.

I still resent the advertised set themes being so big. Magic feels like it’s been going the way of the Cliché Big Event—a humongous and archetypal villain shows up, only to be stopped by similarly archetypal ~~superheroes~~ planeswalkers. That’s gotten old. Is it that Magic isn’t suited for nuanced stories? Is it that the powers that be at Wizards are too content with simplistic stories and don’t want to break any molds? (Archetype and stereotype are different in theory, but the former yields the latter easily. If Wizards doesn’t want to offend people by stereotyping, they shouldn’t be so willing to paint its heroes and villains with color-by-numbers.)

I don’t know the answers, and I don’t have much use for fiction stories—I’m a musician, not a storyteller—but it feels as though Magic hasn’t had a unique story for a while. The same three chords can resonate only so many times for those who pay attention, and Avacyn Restored’s branding feels completely like I have been there and done that.

A few hours ago: Those packs are way too tempting. Nemesis, Torment, Scourge . . . okay, Nemesis isn’t tempting. But my wife just got her first job out of college. We’re both employed long-term. I can go all-out on these! But should I?

Long-term, boosters carry as much value as their commons and uncommons. If there are a lot of good rares, you might be able to pull off good average value from a random pack. Eventide has only a couple uncommons anybody cares about, but it has so many rare cycles with casual and tournament appeal that it carries value almost entirely off its rares. Coldsnap is the opposite—nobody needs many rares that aren’t Adarkar Valkyrie or Dark Depths, but the uncommons have Counterbalance, and the commons have Rite of Flame and snow lands.

In sets since I’ve been playing, Scourge is king of the uncommon-driven set. The Warchiefs that aren’t Mistform carry good value, even Daru Warchief. There’s Alpha Status, Brain Freeze, and Temple of the False God as well. There are only forty-five uncommons in the set, so every pack has good odds of giving you something tradable. And it’s not as though the rares are totally shabby—there’s Stifle, for example.

For whatever threshold in your group at which you can trade stuff easily, take a card store website or anything similar and find out how many commons of a set are above a certain price, then do the same thing for uncommons and rares. Knowing how a set’s value is distributed can make all the difference in that booster-pack gamble feeling good or bad afterward. Not all sets are as bad as others. Torment’s about average for uncommon frequency; the difference is that its good uncommons are very good, such as Cabal Coffers and Cabal Therapy.

I’ll throw caution to the wind. I didn’t buy anything at Grand Prix: Seattle–Tacoma a couple months ago, even though I won $200 from it and my first-ever Pro Point . . . I’m a casual writer with a Pro Point, I’ve Top 64’d every Grand Prix I’ve been to (all one of them), and I have a bye for Grand Prix: Vancouver . . . that makes me sound like I know what I’m doing, doesn’t it? Never mind that my Sealed pool had Mentor of the Meek, Lingering Souls, Vault of the Archangel, and two Rally the Peasants—clearly it’s my mad phat skillz. My skillz at having a last name that placed me three seats down from the person kind enough to open that pool and pass it to me per the head judge’s instructions. Thank you, that person!

The store had one of these repackaged deals with three boosters and a promotional Broodmate Dragon for cheaper than the individual packs. It looks like two Innistrad and one Scars of Mirrodin booster. Here goes . . .

That’s exactly what it is. Etched Champion adorns the one pack while Bloodgift Demon is the art on the other two. I once had two Mirrodin Besieged packs as tournament prize; they had Phyrexian Crusader artworks, and both packs had a Phyrexian Crusader. I don’t need more Bloodgift Demons, though. They’re not planeswalkers.

I’m looking at the cards one at a time in order, so I’m typing the cards in this article as I see them. We’re discovering pack contents at the same rate, in a way.

Scars of Mirrodin booster – Plague Stinger, Blade-Tribe Berserkers, Iron Myr, Kemba's Skyguard, Neurok Replica, Carapace Forger, Vedalken Certarch, Sylvok Lifestaff, Withstand Death, Screeching Silcaw, Flesh Allergy, Halt Order, Myrsmith, and . . .

Looking back, Scars of Mirrodin is cool enough, but its themes were a little bland. That pack would have been all right for Draft, I guess. Engulfing Slagwurm’s life-gain is nice in some Commander decks. Also, I’m fairly certain my articles sometimes use “life gain” and sometimes use “lifegain.” I dunno. Next booster!

This is my favorite song on the album: “Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue” by As One, on the out-of-print Planetary Folklore album. Electronic jazz fusion has enough variety to take it out of the boring end of jazz. I’m also a sucker for odd time signatures, especially in electronica. 5/4 is awesome when it doesn’t just feel like the most famous 5/4 song, i.e. the Mission: Impossible theme.

Innistrad booster 1 – Kindercatch, Crossway Vampire (Crossway sounds like a Christian bookstore chain—for all I know, it is), Lost in the Mist, Kessig Wolf, Nightbird's Clutches (I hate facing this card in Draft), Traveler's Amulet, Darkthicket Wolf, Brain Weevil, Rotting Fensnake, Grasp of Phantoms, Hollowhenge Scavenger, Paraselene. Now for the rare and double-faced cards. Fingers crossed, except obviously they’re not since I’m typing . . .

And Villagers of Estwald, but who cares about them? They don’t give flashback to things. They don’t put my imaginary kids through college. Go away, Villagers. You’re blocking Snapcaster’s light.

Now I just want to keep opening stuff . . .

Innistrad booster 2 – Some commons even I get bored of typing, Butcher's Cleaver, Into the Maw of Hell (I’ve killed a Reaper from the Abyss with this—does the Reaper even mind that it was sent to Hell?), Geistcatcher's Rig, and . . .

Woodland Cemetery (completes my play set!), Tormented Pariah, and a foil . . .

A long time ago—except it wasn’t that long ago—any dual land or Birds of Paradise was hard to come by for a budget-minded casual player. It’s still jarring to me when I can pick up the old pain duals like Battlefield Forge for under two bucks. Nowadays, my plan is to pick up rare dual lands whenever they’re cheap. Clifftop Retreat’s cheap now; you’ll use R/W stuff someday, so take advantage of stuff like that. Your collection might not develop in a straight line, but it will have more good cards in it than otherwise. Demand is an unusual force in Magic.

Now for my seven Scourge boosters. I started playing in Onslaught; Legions was an awful set to be my first new one (especially when I’m opening multiple Goblin Goons instead of Akroma or Phage), so Scourge is the first new set of my playing days that I actually like. And since its uncommon run is so fantastic, it led me to buy more than I should. It’s not like they were discounted or anything, after all . . .

Scourge booster 1 – Spark Spray, Wipe Clean, Break Asunder (Astral Slide and Lightning Rift not included; some assembly required), Unburden, Goblin War Strike, Daru Spiritualist (a fun part in that infinite life combo—yes, I’ve made two googolplexes of Storm Herd tokens), Zombie Cutthroat, Treetop Scout, Frozen Solid, Goblin Brigand, Astral Steel, Mistform Warchief (wrong Warchief!), Rain of Blades . . .

. . . and a foil . . .

Told you the uncommons were good. Forget what I said about Mistform Warchief; a foil Tendrils of Agony is the stone nuts. I feel a lot better about this live article format if I’m going to keep opening awesome stuff. Amazingly enough, for what I said about the Phyrexian Crusader packs earlier, this was the one booster with Dragonstorm artwork on the wrapper. I have two that I think are Dragon Mage and four that are Bladewing the Risen. Here come the Dragon Mage ones.

Scourge booster 2 – Break Asunder, Dragon Wings, Spark Spray, Titanic Bulvox, Daru Spiritualist, Dragon Breath, Clutch of Undeath (a card cool enough that I always regret not using it even though it’s not that good), Fierce Empath, Dispersal Shield, Scattershot, Aven Farseer, Claws of Wirewood, Enrage . . .

. . . and foil . . .

Ever since Scourge, I always look for what creatures cost 6 or more mana. Fierce Empath is the poster boy for that, such as in this current version of what was my third deck ever—I’ve had a version of this together for the entire time I’ve been playing:

"The Throwback"

Gratuitous Violence lets Venomspout Brackus deal 10 damage to a flyer in combat. That’s always tickled me. Contested Cliffs was one of the first dozen or so rares I opened in my life, so I’ve always had a deck with it. Roar. Gnarlid Pack fills a surprising role for helping amplify and being on-curve. Who would have thought?

Scourge booster 3 – Bonethorn Valesk, Dragon Scales, Carrion Feeder (either Inquest or Scrye gave this a 5 out of 5 when it came out—I’ll never forget that), Break Asunder (again?), Dragon Wings, Spark Spray, Chartooth Cougar, Astral Steel, Clutch of Undeath, Fierce Empath, Dispersal Shield (print runs strike again), Daru Warchief, Unspeakable Symbol, Elvish Aberration, and . . .

Hot dog, I’ve wanted a Raven Guild Master for a long time. Ever since some random game in which a guy I didn’t know put a Fireshrieker and then a Whispersilk Cloak on one, I’ve wanted to get an RGM, but not so much that I wanted to pay for one. Awesome sauce.

I’m tiring of the commons, and if word count is like the length of a live show, I’m almost out of time, so I’ll skip the commons for the Bladewing the Risen packs. I’ve gotten nice value out of these packs so far. It’s nuts.

Scourge booster 4 – Brain Freeze, Tendrils of Agony, Claws of Wirewood, and . . .

There’s me my storm combo, whichever way I want to do it. I love Decree of Savagery in my Radha Commander deck—either mode’s a good use of the 2 extra mana from attacking—and I wouldn’t mind putting it in some other green deck.

Scourge booster 5 – Dragonstalker, Elvish Aberration, Wirewood Symbiote, and . . .

This has been the worst Scourge pack so far, and it still has a pricey uncommon in Wirewood Symbiote. Unsurprisingly, I already have a play set of Upwelling.

Scourge booster 6 – Goblin Warchief, Pyrostatic Pillar, and . . .

. . . with foil . . .

How am I opening so many foil uncommons? No complaints, of course. Goblin Warchief and Pyrostatic Pillar are both worth more than Decree of Annihilation. What a great pile for a mono-red Commander deck, which is convenient, since I’m working on a Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs one. Come to think of it, Kazuul is amazing with Decree of Annihilation. I’m normally not one for mass land destruction, but that’s pretty tasty as well as being on-theme enough to justify its inclusion for non-Spike games.

Scourge booster 7 – Undead Warchief, Elvish Aberration, Gilded Light, and . . .

The final pack had Final Punishment? I guess the punishment was that it was the least interesting rare of the lot. Still got an Undead Warchief, though. I told you Scourge was worth buying for its uncommons. Seven boosters isn’t a statistically meaningful sample size, but look at these packs and how many different power uncommons I got. I hedged the bets, and it worked out all right. Not necessarily against the cost of the boosters, but every Scourge booster gave some value back. You can’t ask for much more out of randomness.

Well, that was an exciting way for me to write an article; I hope you enjoyed reading it. To summarize, out of ten boosters, I opened: