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Well put. Modern is so new that it's no surprise that Wizards is behind on giving it real support. I have faith they will come around now that the rules are well under control.

As for your examples of old school playing I did them all before I learned standard (except opening the mentioned cards).

Perhaps you did them, but did you do them for 7+ years like the rest of us? I am guessing maybe a year at most. Magic may improve, but WotC needs to start looking at everyone who is interested instead of just focusing solely on newer players. That is just my opinion though.

Haha nice mod mistake. The quote and modify buttons are a bit close together. I see what you're saying for sure, Im just trying to distinguish for you that though I am new I very much understand where you're coming from. i may not have grown to love it as you did, But I did grow to breathe it as you did. Please dont condemn the future for not being the past, things change that does not make them wrong. All your points are valid but I feel like the animosity toward the situation has been exaggerated by your nostalgia.

Sorry for the mod mistake. Anyways, I am just tripping over nostalgia. I simply do not like the direction of this game. Nobody is being hostile. I am just saying that the game that I enjoy is almost entirely gone. If anything, Magic feels more like a chore for me anymore. I find little fun in it anymore. I want to enjoy the game I really do. But I just can't with the way it is going. I am not condemning it for not being the past. I am point out how much has changed and raising the question why I should care anymore.

And DC hit the nail on the head. Mythic rarity was originally meant for story like purposes. Cards like Avacyn, Griselbrand, and other important characters from the lore or specific events should take this rarity spot. Anything that is just over the top. Enter the Infinite is an example of a properly made mythic. It doesn't matter though. Mythic rarity has just been an excuse to print powerful cards at a harder to get rarity just to sell booster boxes. It sickens me when I see this. Mythic rarity is a whole other monster on its own. Flavor and story was the base, but now it has evolved into just another way to sell packs to people that fork over money for them.

Haha well played. You are exactly right about when I start but not about how. I was introduced to the game by long time players with old time rules, I have lived in both worlds and the flaws in design used to drive me crazy. That being said everything had a reason behind and I love that. The new clone rules are the first ones that I can think of that are strickly for eaaing game play without any concern for flavor, this does really bother me.

I like games like chess and Othello. Minutes to learn, life time to master. I personally like the slow shift in that direction.

On the point of cost...i do believe magic has grown way top expensive and something has to give. Some effort has been shown to put 4 ofs at rare like {scavenging ooze} while more niche powerhouses hold higher ratity. ...gotta work again

While I do acknowledge you points, you argument is still flimsy do to lack of experience with the source. You did not play the game when damage went on the stack or when there were no such things as planeswalkers. Trust me, you have not played old school magic unless you have issues with how banding works, tapped Tolerian Academy for a million mana, Demonic Tutored a basic land so you do not miss your land drop, or have been extremely stoked to rip a Lord of the Pit or Shivan Dragon out of a pack. I guess what I am saying I am glad you enjoy the game. However, I cannot expect you to understand where I am coming from because the game is entirely different from what it was before M10 and the like. Trust me, playing this game when planeswalkers didn't exist and damage went on the stack is entirely perspective changing on its own. I am not saying that those two changes were bad for the game. I am just saying you have never seen a Siege Gang Commander take out 2 of your creatures and knock you for 6-7 damage all with 4 mana open during the combat step. The depth that went into a combat step like that was intense. So many possible combinations of how blockers could be declared. It made combat math tough, but rewarded critical thought. By removing damage on the stack they simplified the game. And that was just the first step. The new rule does have some sense since how can a creature deal damage without actually being there. However, in the process of making sense, they started to eliminate the complexity. Since then more and more changes have led to a simpler game. Magic is by no means a bad game. It is just a game that appears to be complex but is now just as basic as most other card games. If it were not for the stack and how it works, magic would just be another game that took little play skill and eventually die out. The quality of magic players has gone down because of these changes. While that is not an issue, what is a problem is WotC's catering to this crowd instead of making them strap on their big boy boots and making them wisen up a bit. Newer players are fine, but at some point they need to learn that magic is more complex then the other card game they came from (if they played another game previously). WotC claims that they are trying to make it new player friendly, but in reality all that is happening is WotC is making the game a slightly more complex yugioh. Especially with the new legend rule. They want to create interactive gamestates with the players however, by making this change now players just play their cards without worrying about what may come. They just focus on their own game and totally disregard the opponent because if they play a Jace too it wont matter. If anything, it is the opposite of WotC's goal. Now people can play cards freely and not have to worry about legend rules. This alone eliminates the interactivity between players. Finding a solution to the opponent's permanent so you could play yours was incredibly interactive. You had to think outside of the box and not over commit to one game plan. Because of the new rules and direction of the game, Magic has become a durdle fest of who can play more creatures faster or who can lay down a planeswalker and gain all the advantage first. Magic now caters to the crowds who either have tons of money (planewalker game plans) or just play creatures and disregard the opponents creatures (durdle fest game plan). This has evolved past a "control and combo are dead" argument and has not become a who does WotC care about? A fresh generation of teenagers who grew up with yugioh are just now coming over to magic. Now they have to cater to those people and what they are used to because it makes them happy and they are the ones who have the cash. WotC should do this to an extent as a business, but also show some love to their older crowd which made them who they are today. FTV releases are not what I am talking about. How about some support for the older formats or throwing the old school players a bone in Modern? Maybe a release with some much needed reprints except not make it a limited print run? How about unbanning Golgari Grave Troll since dredge wont be a deck anyways as long as Dread Return is banned? Things like these could be done to show support to the people who made the game what it is today. If it was not for old school players, new players would not have their durdle fests today. By all means players should have the right to play that way if they want. However, it is not necessary to make every format within reason like this. If they want to take a little they should give a little too. Where is the balance the game used to have? That is the ideology I am looking for.

I will share my thoughts. Some key points many of you don't know. I do have a team to play magic when I want. I have access to most cards but only with good management of trades does this collection continue to support our team (we don't really buy packs, we enter in prerelease events and win and trade for what we need). Every rotation we turn in a bunch of bulk rotating stuff that I can't justify holding onto into star city games and turn the credit into needed rares from the new set. I play standard, edh, and experiment in modern. Lastly, I focus a lot on game design and the decisions that go into it when judging a new set.

I have been super impressed by some things over the last year and super dissapointed by other decisions made by WotC. However over all I can see that they have made a very well refined machine though changes that have occurred in the last few years. This 'dumbing down' of magic every talks about as a bad thing actually really pisses me off. I played Yu-gi-oh before magic and am very well acquainted with what the alternative to an easy to understand game is. Yugioh is doomed to fail in the long run because their rules are so convoluted and written in between the lines that only those who already know them all can play at any competitive event. In magic we welcome players to join with the easiest game to learn for just how in depth it is. With all the billions of possibilities it is amazing the game can be learned enough to play at an fnm within an hour,

The whole no combos allowed thing is frustrating for us who love them, but again look at the alternative. Looking back at Yugioh, the average competitive match is over by turn two. You don't even get to play the game half the time. Who wants to play a game you don't get to play? It seems redundant but that is the alternative to banning turn 3 or earlier consistent combos.

This simplifying of the rules while maintaining complex interactions is the really marketing ploy. Remember wizards does not make money of a $30 spike in {voice of resurgence}, they make their money off of inviting and retaining new players. Star City Games, Abugames, TCG, they are the ones who see money from $30 spikes and mythics needed in 4 ofs.

DG this is not an attack on you, but you hit every major point that the average losing hope magic player complains about. Sometimes it just takes a different look at something to appreciate it, the difficulty is when people decide what they are looking at before they really take a look at it. You can all call me spoiled, but it was hard word, good planning, and social skills that got me to this point. To humble myself I regularly work with new players on the best thing they can build so I never forget what it was like when I had to work with a tight budget and little to no experience. I have more I could share, but I have to get to work and this is already pretty long. I hope it helps you see things for the better.

I am not sure why those key points are relevant, but whatever you think backs up your arguments. Quit looking at my points with face value. I am talking about the ideas. Consider the ideas I am trying to convey. Everything else I explained was just a contributing factor to one idea. This is not an attack on you either, but consider this. Why are so many players reiterating this idea? Could it be perhaps there is some truth to it? By the sounds of it you have only been playing for a few years (there is nothing wrong with this). My guess is you came into Magic during one of it's big booms (Zendikar, M10, Innistrad, etc.).  There is nothing wrong with that, but what you need to realize is the game is now catered to people in your shoes. Anybody who has started magic the past 4 or so years has the game catered to them and did not ever experience the way magic used to be. So honestly you cannot even begin to understand where I or others are coming from. Like I said, this is not an attack on you. I am just saying that you cannot hope to understand the "average losing hope mage player(s)" point of view because you have not been there. Maybe you have and I am just assuming too much. If that is the case I am sorry. However, by the way you present both your arguments and your past history with the game my guess is I am closer to correct than incorrect in my assessments. 

Articles may come again in the future if this game gives me the inspiration it once did. For me, the price of entry is not really the main problem. It is a rather large one, but not the main issue I have with modern, standard, and what not. I just do not like the formats anymore. Modern has not creativity and is just goodstuff.deks. Standard is just too low of a skill level required to appease my competitive nature. Standard is fine and all, but when you have played it as long as I or other old magic players have it become a really easy format with little innovation. Its purpose is to help guide newer players to a point where they can understand how to play this game well and to push sales of their latest sets. For me, Standard started becoming stale a long time ago. Extended was not bad, but now it is dead. Modern (the replacement) has a banlist that is keeping it from reaching its potential. Legacy's reserved list is killing it off. Nobody really plays vintage unless they like living off of eating cardboard. And EDH is almost never fun for me since it always evolves into 4v1's and I sit there for 2 hours watching everybody else have fun. The sad part is my EDH deck is not even that bad. But because the players I play with (newer players) do not know how to handle a situation that is put in front of them, they all just gang up and attack. That is what they learned from WotC. When I started playing, you learned to conserve your card, outwit your opponent, and find answers to the problem. Seriously, how overpowered is a deck that uses Varolz as a general? No infinite combos, no absurdly powerful broken cards. Just a deck that ramps/reanimates/draws cards to gain advantage. Seriously, if it is turn 30 and you have no answer to an unprotected Vorinclex, you deserve to lose to the Genisis Wave that comes next turn. I purposelessly nerf my EDH decks for the sake of the casual group. Even nerfing my decks still does not fix bad players and their mentality.

Honestly, magic is becoming more of a joke to me in my opinion. Nothing has sparked the writing flare I once had, the game is expensive beyond belief, and each year the game gets simpler and simpler. Magic as a whole has been on a downward spiral. They took the easy way out and catered to the crowd who had the most money instead of looking at the importance of the game itself. WotC and Hasbro are businesses too; I get that as I am a man of business myself. However, the complete and utter lack of disregard they have for long time players or players who are on a budget just sickens me. Event decks have not been up to par since the Vamp deck, prerleases and other forms of organized play have turned into gimmick fests, and the shoehorned mythic rarity of every needed card makes the game just too much of a hassle to deal with. Modern Masters was a huge flop too. Yeah it slightly lowered the price of Finks and the like. But at the cost of Making Goyf cost $40 more and a small price hike in BoB. Any money saved by Modern Masters and reprinted Shocks is immediately undone by the price spike of Goyf and fetches. Combo is dead now and WotC has no intention of ever letting it live again in Modern. That joke of a format has deteriorated into nothing but 3 color goodstuff.deks and it annoys me so much. There was so much missed potential here. EDH is pointless for me too since my town is small and my playgroup is limited. I am always the first one targeted and it becomes 4v1 until I am out of the picture. Then I sit there and wait for 3 hours as everybody else has fun while I question why I still even bother playing this game. Control is only a shell of it's former self and aggro has been so simplified with the new rulings that it remains even less interesting than before. The depth that made magic great is slowly fading away. Yet fanboys will still cling to the game until its dying breath. Honestly, I could probably afford to play competitive Magic if I want to quit college and drop a few hobbies. But why should I make these sacrifices for a game that is only marginally fun anymore? Drafting is really the only thing left in this game for me but my local store never runs those events since we can barely get enough for one pod. They do not want people left out, so we always need multiples of 8 (we usually end up with around 10 on FNM days and 33 on prereleases).

I realize this may make me sound pretentious and I know that nobody is telling me to give up any hobbies for competitive magic. But why on earth should I even bother with it anymore? Prices have more than doubled since Zendikar for every format. I honestly just needed to get this off of my chest more than anything else. What does everybody else think of the current state of Magic? With Theros just around the corner and more gimmicks to come, what does all of this mean for Magic?

Just when I think I can play the game again fetch lands go up in price. Honestly, both modern and magic are starting to become dead to me? Why has this game doubled in price the last few years? I want to play so badly, but this is just rediculus.

/rant thread go

For anyone interested, some of these cards I already have and will be willing to sell (preferably, to offset the cost of the deck) or possibly trade. that being said I am purchasing the deck.

List of what U have from here?  Cuz I am interested in several of the cards

Check the OP. He bought it off of me, so anything that is listed is now his.

You're not selling away singles from this, correct?

I really do not want to. I would rather it go as one complete lot/deck.

I'm quite interested, do you have a post in commander with this in it so i can upload it into deckbuilder for a reasonable price range?

You are getting more than what you are paying for here. Basically, you are jut buying the money cards.everything else is basically thrown in.

Hello everyone. Currently looking to sell my Progenitus EDH deck. The deck is not done with every shock and what not, but there is still some cool value here. Here is a list of the notable stuff.

Lands
1 Steam Vents (RtR)
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 City of Brass (MM)
1 Savage Lands (Promo)
1 Murmuring Bosk (FTV)
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Overgrown Tomb (RtR)
1 Dragonskull Summit (M10 Foil)
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Isolated Chapel (played)

Artifacts
1 Coalition Relic (PvC)
1 Sculpting Steel (Mirrodin)
1 Mana Vault (4th or 5th)
1 Chromatic Lantern

Creatures
1 Progentius (Conflux)
1 Eternal Witness
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Rafiq of the Many
1 Venser, Shaper Savant (light play and Spanish I believe)
1 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
1 Trygon Predator
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Rune-Scarred Demon (foil)
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae

Planewalkers
1 Jace Beleren (M10)
1 Tezzert, the Seeker (EvT played)

Instants and Sorceries
1 Cryptic Command (foil MM)
1 Conflux
1 Spell Crumple
1 Wrath of God (8th SP)
1 Hinder
1 Fact or Fiction (Invasion, Signed)
1 Fracturing Gust (foil)
1 Austere Command
1 Beseech the Queen

There are plenty of other cool cards too, but the above is the bulk of the value. I am asking $250 for the deck (the deck overall is worth more than that. The stuff above is around $230-240 by itself). This includes shipping and DC anywhere in the US (the deck will come shipped in sleeves and a box). I will not break this deck apart. If you want a full list, please PM me with the request. Prices came from coolstuffinc.com (I took off .08% to come up with $250).

Here is a small list of what else this deck also contains.
1 Diabolic Tutor (foil)
1 Shatterstorm
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Druidic Satchel
1 Mercurial Chemister (foil)
1 Magister Sphinx
1 Mimic Vat
1 Day of Judgment
1 Telemin Performance
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Glittering Wish
1 All Suns' Dawn
1 Oblation
Xx All of the basic lands are full art Zen lands
Xx More cool cards

Paypal only please. Thanks,

DG

I have some of these, see Moneekah's pm :)

PM'd and Bump.

Anybody interested in the Clique? I could do a combination of cash and cards or $40 shipped. Let me know.

DG

Bump

Hello everyone. Because of my financial dilemma, I was forced to sell 95% of my collection that I had built up over the last decade. I now have less than 300 cards in my entire collection (I do not even have any basic land). Because of this, building decks has now become a little bit of a chore. However, I am still determined to play the Modern format (even if I am shoehorned into a sub par build). Here is my list of needs. Please let me know if anybody has these. I do not have much to trade, but I do have a few small things. To complete the main deck of my modern storm deck (excluding the lands) I need the following:

4 {Goblin Electromancer}
4 {Serum Visions}
4 {Remand}
4 {Sleight of Hand}
3 {Past in Flames}
2-3 {Goblin Bushwacker}

Title says it all. $42 shipped with DC anywhere in the US. Please let me know. Thanks,

DG