Is it worth it?

[Inkeyes22]

It seems that at least a few times a month I see this question pop up. Either on social media or conversing with friends etc. and it is really a hard question to answer. How much something is worth to you specifically has a lot of factors. The law of diminishing returns (How many Commander's Spheres do you really need?) plays a factor. How much utility do you get out of it? Sakura-Tribe Elder and Faeburrow Elder both cost about a buck, but you might need more "Steve"s because not every green deck you run has white.

Probably the biggest factor is disposable income. Will replacing a Woodland Stream with a Tropical Island or a Temple of Mystery improve your deck? Of course, but as one is roughly $3 and the other is an astronomical $400 for a heavily played version, can you really justify spending almost 100x more for that? Well, maybe. Realistically the decks that run Tropical Island likely run the Temple as well, but assuming you are new(ish) which would you get first?

I figured it might be worth assuming some things (I know that makes an ass out of you and me), but it might make sense to break it down. Say you make $15/hour, I chose this number not completely arbitrarily as that is a number where you (hopefully) have some disposable income but you are not just rolling in the dough. I chose it as that is roughly what it costs to draft at several stores, and it is also roughly what it costs to get a ticket to see a movie. This means it is at a point where you have options on where to spend your entertainment budget. Let's say you go to a movie, $15 gone and you get roughly 90 minutes of entertainment. You go to do a draft and $15 gone, with roughly 3 hours of entertainment plus now you have some cards. How much are those cards worth? Depends but likely $4-10 dollars. So we should all just draft rather than going to see a movie right? Not necessarily, maybe we hate drafting or maybe we really want to see that movie. Maybe we like drafting but we stink at it, or maybe we don't want any commons or uncommons from the current set (or already have them).

Going back to our assumption of $15/hr. this means that we are trading an hour of work for X hours of fun. If say we buy Thassa, Deep-Dwelling it will cost us about $15 today. If we make a new commander deck with Thassa at the helm and we play it 4-5 times for about 8-10 hours total have we recouped our costs? That is hard to say. Maybe we had a Yarok, the Desecrated that we just upgraded something for Thassa so we didn't sink in any additional time or money besides the $15 for Thassa. I would say it was probably worth it, but your mileage may vary.

Now another topic that I think we should hit on is that sometimes strict upgrades (such as Woodland Stream to Tropical Island) don't always actually improve your deck in multiplayer. More than once threat assessment has been determined based on the price of the cards the opponents have seen. "Well if they have Tropical Island, they must be playing cEDH and so we have to kill them on sight." Sometimes you have someone play Carpet of Flowers and now they get an additional mana because of your upgrade. So there is a lot of factors.

But for all that I have typed I haven't answered the question!

Is buying think-X worth it? Well, maybe we can't answer it without some dialogue.

Please tip your waitresses, I'll be here all week!

[Sinis]

Is buying think-X worth it? Well, maybe we can't answer it without some dialogue.

It's a tough question to answer, and likely impossible in an objective way. First is the question of whether you'll cash out; if you do, then the high-end cards you own may cost a minimal amount, or even turn a profit; my revised Underground Sea, purchased for $100 CAN would be profitable if I sold it to a dealer. For me, personally, I have no intent to cash out, but others might want to factor that in their calculations, but it's also possible that Magic cards (as with other collectibles, automobiles, and real estate) could be used as collateral to secure loans for business opportunities, and that has its own value.

If you want to talk about quantity of entertainment time per dollar spent. Between shopping, deckbuilding and gameplay, how many hours of fun (hereafter known as "funtime") do you get out of a deck? Then, does that compare favourably to other more explicit dollar-to-funtime vehicles (say, a movie that costs $6/hour). You could have a board game for even budget EDH piles that could provide hours and hours of entertainment; if you play a board game that cost $50 and 1 hour to play, and you play it 25 times, that's a mere $2/hour of fun. Once you split that cost among the other players, it ends up being kind of a bargain.

Of course, then, there's the quality of entertainment over time. The above ratio of dollars:funtime is not very nuanced; that would be like saying you should always eat the food that meets nutritional need at the cheapest cost, and you'd end up eating the same thing every day, eschewing finer foods that one would enjoy every once in a while. Magic's funtime quality level is inherently subjective; for the people who aren't all that interested in the game and stop playing after their first or second set, their Magic-specific funtime quality level is clearly 'low'. For some of us (especially those of us who have spent hundreds or thousands on cards), it's pretty high. It should be noted that specific cards (like Tropical Island) may or may not noticeably increase your Magic-specific funtime quality level; whether Tropical Island actually enables you to enjoy the game more in some significant way is really up for debate, but probably uses the same factors I talk about here.

Finally, there is a collector value. This shouldn't be confused with 'resale or collateral value', but rather as 'pride of ownership'. I get a certain amount of joy out of my (rather extensive) collection, and if I were to lose it tomorrow, I would be deeply upset that something I valued had vanished. This is also subjective; obviously people sell at buylist prices when the monetary offer on a card exceeds the joy they get out of owning it, and the 'never sell' crowd has some belief, latent or overt, that ownership of cardboard enriches their lives in some esoteric way. It's worth noting that this isn't a Magic-specific funtime quality level increase; it's just a passive increase on my quality of life. If all I ever did was buy cards, sort and store them, I would be happier than I would be without them (but maybe that's tied to the idea that I use my cards, and possibly untrue?).

All this said, it is worth it to me, but, there are plenty of individual cards that are not worth it. So much so, that I have considered divesting myself of many of my very expensive cards that have reasonable analogues (like my singleton set of duals). I would not purchase revised duals at today's prices.

I want to say "no, it's not worth it", yet I retain my collection and continue to add to it, often preordering product that I may not even use (I preordered Unsanctioned, isn't that wild?). So, it must be worth it (to me) in some sense, though, I do live in stereotypical Western plenty (I have plenty of 'first-world problems', but nothing is critical, even if I casually believe my life could be better).

[Inkeyes22]

Is buying think-X worth it? Well, maybe we can't answer it without some dialogue.

If you want to talk about quantity of entertainment time per dollar spent. Between shopping, deckbuilding and gameplay, how many hours of fun (hereafter known as "funtime") do you get out of a deck? Then, does that compare favourably to other more explicit dollar-to-funtime vehicles (say, a movie that costs $6/hour). You could have a board game for even budget EDH piles that could provide hours and hours of entertainment; if you play a board game that cost $50 and 1 hour to play, and you play it 25 times, that's a mere $2/hour of fun. Once you split that cost among the other players, it ends up being kind of a bargain.

This reminded me of when I got Seafall for Christmas. My wife spent I think $45, and we played 14 games at roughly 2.5 hours each. So roughly 35ish hours so all and all it was pretty bargain fun.

Usually I do try to figure out how much I will use something before I buy it. For example I did by the Secret Vault: Year of the Rat, because you know... Ink-Eyes but I didn't buy the others. I have yet to see what is coming in the next few days but good chance I won't buy those either at $30-40.

[Sinis]

Usually I do try to figure out how much I will use something before I buy it. For example I did by the Secret Vault: Year of the Rat, because you know... Ink-Eyes but I didn't buy the others. I have yet to see what is coming in the next few days but good chance I won't buy those either at $30-40.

This was the case with the Battlestar Galactica boardgame printed in 2009. We must have paid $50, and got dozens of games in, translating to more than a hundred hours of enjoyment. We played weekly, and it was a good time. The cost per player (4 of us), must have been nickles on the hour.

So, here's the real kicker; let's say I sell an Underground Sea, believing that the number of hours (at a quality level that is equal to that of the average board game) I will significantly enjoy this card into the future is just not worth it. Let's say I exchange it for a land of trivial value that I would probably never play (Jwar Isle Refuge). So, that's (hypothetically) $300 in my pocket.

I then spend that $300 on board games over time. It is a near certainty that I will get more funtime from board games than I would the Underground Sea. I really like board games. From a logical point of view, I should cash out my duals right now, and just have boardgames. With the dual lands I have, it could be 40 or 50 years before I actually have to devote more funds to it.

Dual lands in particular seem to be not worth it; something like my copy of The Abyss would present a less obvious case, since its functionality is near-unique (non-creature that continually destroys creatures).

So, why haven't I sold my duals yet? That's a real trick, and I honestly don't have a good answer (except pride of ownership, but when I look at it this way, pride of ownership is expensive af).

---

It's really hard to understate how it works in the other direction, as well.

I have a singleton set of duals + some extras, and I have not sold them (despite everything above), but I wouldn't buy them at current prices in my current financial position. If I were insanely wealthy, would I inject revised duals in all my decks? If cost were really, actually and truly no object, I probably would, even though the increase in enjoyment would be marginal.

I was thinking about your talk about upgrading Thornwood Falls to Tropical Island, but a hidden premise there is that we would, of course, already have Thornwood Falls. I have never played Thornwood Falls outside of sealed/draft. The premise is that everyone can easily have a Thornwood Falls. Maybe whether a card is worth it is also a function of individual financial position; everyone gets enjoyment out of Thornwood Falls over a worse land (like a basic in a deck with 30+ basics) because it's trivial to obtain for the vast majority of players.

Since better lands do increase the fun you get from other cards (unless you really appreciate the art on some crap lands), maybe the answer is to purchase only the set of cards you can trivially obtain that produce the maximum quantity and quality of enjoyment. So, checklands like Drowned Catacomb are a really good value; they are applicable across many decks (i.e. you will almost always use them), not a considerable financial burden for most, and will increase your enjoyment in some way greater than the truly budget/garbage lands (like Jwar Isle Refuge).

[Toshi]

I think it comes down to several factors:

1.) What's my starting point?

Let's say i'm a seasoned MTG player and my collection comes with plenty to work with. I might not have ABUR duals, but a wild mix of Rootbound Crags, Tainted Woods and so on. I may be missing Purphoros, God of the Forge, Berserk and Food Chain, but i can apply some major upgrades to a Prossh, Skyraider of Kher precon just from my binders.
For "just" $80 i might be able to get those 3 cards or spend $100 and throw in a few smaller missing cards as well.

On the other hand, if i'm more or less new to the game, got the precon as a gift and have the same $80 to spend, just getting the above 3 cards wouldn't be "worth it". If i were to pick up Impact Tremors, Fatal Frenzy, Skullclamp, Beastmaster Ascension and Smothering Abomination instead, i'd have about $65 left to work on the mana base, disruption and ramp. (Or not spend on MTG at all! )

2.) How big of an upgrade is card A to card B?

To keep it simple i'm going to compare lands that can generate and , but not "of any type" and aren't limited in use (e.g. Vivid Crag & Vivid Marsh):

Tier 4
Cinder Barrens/Rakdos Guildgate/Tresserhorn Sinks/Urborg Volcano
Akoum Refuge/Bloodfell Caves
Lavaclaw Reaches

All of these etb tapped, have no to marginal upsides/situations they shine in and an upgrade within this category is virtually none - no matter the financial cost.

---

Tier 3
Temple of Malice
Canyon Slough

These still etb tapped, but come with one or more noticeable upsides. Not worth a big investment, but neat after all.

---

Tier 2
Tainted Peak
Sulfurous Springs
Dragonskull Summit
Smoldering Marsh

These may still have certain requirements, but since they (possibly) etb untapped they might speed up your deck significantly.

---

Tier 1
Luxury Suite
Blood Crypt
Badlands

---

I'd argue that going from Tier 4 to Tier 3 lands won't do much.
From Tier 4/3 to Tier 2 will be a giant leap, though. This is where i'd argue it's "worth it".
Going from Tier 2 to Tier 1 lands is another topic and can't be discussed in a vacuum, because Fetches, yada yada.

3.) How big of an investment is our upgrade?

Let's have a look at our established Tiers and their approximate costs:

Tier 4
All well below $1.00

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Tier 3
Temple of Malice $2.00 (cheapest print)
Canyon Slough $2.00

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Tier 2
Tainted Peak $2.50
Sulfurous Springs $7.00
Dragonskull Summit $2.50
Smoldering Marsh $3.00

---

Tier 1
Luxury Suite $11.00
Blood Crypt $15.00
Badlands $200.00

---

Looking at the numbers, buying into Tier 2 is just as cheap per card as buying into Tier 3, so that's very well "worth it".
Sulfurous Springs hasn't been printed in 13 years, so that price is inflated. Same goes for Adarkar Wastes and Brushland unfortunately. All others in the cycle cost $2.00-4.50.
With that in mind a full "suite" of Tier 2 lands usually costs around the same as one of the cheaper two Tier 1 lands. The less optimized a deck is the more i'd advice to go for the suite over a single land.
If anyone feels that Tier 1 lands are "worth it" depends a lot on our next category.

4.) What am i trying to achieve?

This is the most obvious and most viable factor.

Do you just want to have a better and faster deck, but intend to stay within the constraints of a truly casual enviroment? My budget examples and lower Tier lands will certainly do plenty and you'd save quite some money in comparison to the optimal includes.
But that's not to say you shouldn't go beyond them, if you're willing and able to do so. Just keep in mind that once your deck has reached a certain power level (sometimes marginal) upgrades can be steep investments. Just look at the prices of Force of Will and Mana Drain and then others...

If you really want to go all out and battle the absolute top decks and players that comes at a certain price - one that can still be adjusted by running "just" shocks instead of ABUR duals and so on.

When all is said and done one will have to be realistic about his or her own budget and act accordingly...

[Inkeyes22]

Why is it humorous to me that you changed Woodland Stream to Thornwood Falls? Maybe because gaining the 1 life is probably 99% upside? There are rare occasions (Tainted Remedy) where it is not better.

maybe the answer is to purchase only the set of cards you can trivially obtain that produce the maximum quantity and quality of enjoyment.

And that makes sense in a vacuum. I recommend this course of action to people that aren't that invested in Magic, or EDH in particular. What often happens though is people start getting stomped by the people that even have pre-con level decks. I mean, if we were to build a budget deck with only cards that would be considered "draft-chaff" i.e. cards people will give to random strangers simply to not have to carry it home, we would have to work pretty hard to have something even close to the $40ish builds. Now if you truly don't care about winning (or impacting the game) it doesn't matter, but most people at least want to be able to say "if I drew... then I could have won."

If anybody cares, this thought process started when someone asked me if it was worth buying a game for $3. It kind of suprised me, as the threshold for $3 is pretty low for me. I started to think, as this person isn't in huge financial trouble, "why would he even ask about a $3 purchase?" I started to really think about my own spending habits. I will be the first to admit I am not the best at budgeting when it comes to EDH/M:tG so when it comes to picking up a $3 upgrade for a deck I will likely do it even if I might be breaking it apart soon. If it is a $3 land, such as a Temple of Mystery that will likely go into any future G/U/x decks it is a snap decision (assuming I don't have 2-3 already in my trade binder).

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Damn, this topic is heavy. Nonetheless: I believe an important variable has been excluded from your armchair arithmetics. The Thrill of Acquisition and the anticipation preceding it are tangible incentives to ignore pragmatic analyses and inject human irrationality into economic considerations. Regardless of the net payoff or resulting funtime ratios, sometimes people just want things and having it feels better than not, for whatever reason. I've made no shortage of such mystifying purchases myself, but I can acknowledge a lot of that was scratching the itch to pull a trigger already instead of grinding the idea down to sea glass in my mind.

Edit: grammar/redundancy

[toctheyounger]

On the metric of enjoyment per dollar spent, absolutely not (in general). Really does depend on the card in question, but nonetheless, I personally think that for most people going well outside of a weekly budget to make a high price purchase like an ABUR dual, it really just isn't worth it for enjoyment (unless you're a neurotic completist, in which case your brain will be at ease - your wallet will not).

By comparison, our most played board game (Discworld by Martin Wallace) cost about $65. Since buying it, the author of the books it is derived from has passed, and licenses for Discworld products were pulled by the executor of his estate almost immediately. Now it's well over $100 NZD to buy, if you can find it (which you can't first hand). Still easily worth it, as in any given weekend the wife and I will play best of 3 maybe 3-4 times just over the course of 2 days, and we've owned the game maybe 8 years. It's a favourite among friends too, and on that basis per 'unit of enjoyment' or what have you, we've easily got our money's worth on it and then some.

[pokken]

I'm probably an extreme case here, so figured I'd weigh in a little. I've bought two very expensive cards for cash that made me really ask this question hard: Is it worth it?

I bought a bazaar of baghdad for $575 and a timetwister for $1675.

The Bazaar was for my Gitrog deck which at the time was one of my favorites that I played all the time. I had a ton of fun playing it and the card is now worth ~800 for what I could actually get for it (LP lightly inked, so HPish). So in that respect I got paid $225 to play a card I really wanted to play.

Timetwister is another story. I got it because I got a bonus at work and really wanted to be able to play any CEDH deck I wanted and most of the ones I like have twisters. I really regretted not getting one of these when I had the opportunity for 400 The one I got is quite beat, but I am pretty confident I could get my money out of it still. So bit of a wash there, I have $1675 at risk that if the magic market crashes or something I could be out that money. But at this very moment I might even make a small profit on it (though unlikely).

I've played the twister a bunch in my CEDH deck but being perfectly honest it hasn't been *that* fun.

For the most part I have "gone infinite" though, so again kind of an extreme case. I don't really have to outlay cash for cards, I generally have so many that by the time I am ready for more cards some dumb card I have 5 of has spiked (see everyhting Pioneer) and I can just trade those. I've been trading off 18 dollar supreme verdicts and 10 dollar sylvan caryatids like crazy.

It has *absolutely* been worth the overall investment; I would estimate I have probably around $10-12,000 into magic cards over the 8 years or so I have been playing again, and my collection is probably worth ~25 being conservative. And I've gotten so much enjoyment out of it--I probably spend 10-15 hours a week doing magic related stuff, sometimes more when I'm particularly into it.

Even if my cards were suddenly worth nothing tomorrow I'd count the money invested as a good value for my time; it's really hard to even compare that kind of investment in other hobbies I might be into. I know people with thousands into snowboarding gear, lift tickets, trips, etc.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, right now? I think things have changed a lot. People know way more about the value of magic cards, and the prices are far more inflated than they were when I started. Everything is just so surreal with the prices.

I'm not sure I would advise someone to buy heavily into paper magic right now, and I tend to counsel newer players to only buy exactly the cards they want for decks right now.

[darrenhabib]

My thoughts are that card values just always go up. If you buy any of the vast array of duel lands now, it will increase in value. Its just a simple law woven into the fabric of the Universe it seems.

Now are you ever going to sell your cards? For most of us, that is probably a no. So even though you can get a return on your investment, its likely that its money that you are just sinking into your entertainment.
But this does help convince the wife/husband/partner on your purchases. It might be that your kids do end up selling them when you are in the grave, and the fact is that all that entertainment money is then recouped. Thanks Dad for the new car!
Where as movie money for example is gone forever.

My friend bought 5x Imperial Seal when the promo judge cards were released, because...
A) He wanted one for every black deck he had. The heart wants what it wants.
B) He knew that the return on investment was going to be fantastic.

So he bought them at $150 each and now they are worth $428. He just needs to sell one and he literally spent nothing on getting 3 of them.
Do the Imperial Seal make the decks that much better? Good enough better for sure.
Now this is price speculation, which is an art form on it own. Not everybody has the capital or willing to invest time and knowledge into speculation.
But from my opening statement, you will always get a return on investment with duels. In one months time they will be more. In 6 months time they will be more. In one years time they will be more. In ten years time they will be lots more. In one-hundred years time, you can buy your gold rimmed funeral casket by selling them.

As far as other card speculation, admittedly I have an advantage of knowing if a card is going to be long-term powerful/staple of a format just because I have so much experience with the format. And so when I know a card is good I'll get a full-quota, meaning enough for any potential decks, now and in the future.
As a rule of thumb don't invest too heavily on cards that are still in Standard, as the prices will be inflated until they rotate out.
But as an exception I'm happy to invest in Underworld Breach as I know this is currently undervalued, and not yet appreciated as a commander staple yet, even though its in Standard.

Getting back to the OG topic..
Will replacing a Woodland Stream with a Tropical Island or a Temple of Mystery improve your deck?
Yes is the answer.

Is it worth it?
Given the history of card prices, Yes is also the answer.

But getting a loan just to cover this isn't, you need the capital in the first place.
If you wanted to invest some of your savings into something then a Tropical Island will give you both entertainment and a return on investment.

You're welcome for clarifying this all up, lol.

[pokken]

I think dual lands are actually a fairly good example of the peak of prices. The demand and prices are super soft right now. They move slowly and the prices on most have settled.

I wouldn't bet on returns beating inflation on them for a long time. In edh people are going hog wild proxying them. Have a half dozen in my trade binder and the only time they ever trade is for other duals.

[DirkGently]

If I'm being brutally honest with myself, I think there are three primary reasons behind why I buy/have bought expensive cards.

The first is that it just bothers me to limit myself. I mean, I'll build lots of low-tier commanders with silly strategies, but dammit, if I'm sitting there staring at an etbt dual that's going to mean my silly plan is executed a turn slower, that's going to bother me. I just like having decks that I can look at and go "yeah, that's probably as strong as it is possible to build that deck." I'm a completionist, basically.

The second is that I do like showing off old valuable stuff. Played a few days ago and one guy T1 cracks a fetch into a shock and another player said something like "wow, nice lands", and I'm sitting on my duals and tabernacle thinking "hehe, wait until they get a load of this." I guess it's kind of a power trip. Hey, it's not a good reason, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't part of the fun.

The third is that I suffer from paranoia that the prices will rise, so I usually want to buy ASAP (at least as far as reserved list cards go). Hence why I bought my set of duals and other reserved list rares quite a few years ago, and that was obviously a much better decision than waiting until now to buy them. I've even gone so far as to buy a library of alexandria from paranoia that it'll be unbanned and the price will skyrocket. When PS got unbanned, I rushed to buy it before the price shot up. I just don't like being late on the bandwagon, and watching cards I need get more and more and more expensive makes me feel ill. I know it's kind of stupid to dismiss the idea of just...y'know, letting them get more expensive and not buying them, but what if I change my mind? I'd better buy it NOW NOW NOW before it gets worse!

I think that's probably what's actually going on inside my brain.

Oh yeah, and I've got a fair bit of money and live pretty cheaply otherwise. That helps.

[MeowZeDung]

I'm a husband and father of 4 on a pretty tight budget, so I'll offer a "cheapskate" perspective

I give myself $50/month to spend on magic, until the kids are older or cash flows more freely. That's part of why I limit myself to my favorite color wedge in edh and my other primary source of magic fun is my pauper cube. Both are manageable costs and infinitely replayable as opposed to booster draft and non edh constructed format decks. My buddy does something similar, dumping all his magic budget into his cube.

I ask myself a combination of the following:

- Will I run it in multiple decks and/or for years to come?
- Is it fun/exciting?
- Would I rather have an upgrade in power/efficiency, or just build a whole new deck with staples I already own + a bunch of budget cards?

I don't pretend to have found a perfect balance, but I try. Some examples:

- thought lash and ancestral knowledge are moderately pricey *on my very low budget*, but they're fun, go in both Elsha of the infinite and god-eternal kefnet plus any new blue legends that like top deck stuff, and they won't see reprints. Good buy.

- dockside extortionist is a cool card I'd love to own, but it's expensive, situational, might get a commander product reprint,
and doesn't go in every red deck imo, so: bad buy.

- scalding tarn... sigh. A clear upgrade over evolving/terramorphic for lots of decks, but stupid expensive, not particularly fun or exciting, and might see a reprint with the zendikar set this year (please wotc?). Bad buy on my budget.

- fiery islet and sunbaked canyon hurt a bit to buy, but they go in oodles of decks and, as opposed to tarn, are reasonably priced if not particularly fun or exciting. Good buy.

- the budget guts of an entire Ephara, god of the polis artifact deck that I can slot powerful, already owned cards into: amazing buy! This is why limiting myself to one wedge for the time being has been so sweet - I only need the staples of 3/5 colors and can focus there for the time being and eventually branch out.

[folding_music]

expensive cards to me are things that cost $10-15. things like City of Brass, Battlebond pseudo-duals. Gemstone Mine etc. can all improve yr mana base without necessarily being scuffed, arcane cards from 1993. i've got four of every Ice Age and Apocalypse pain land from trading, these also rule. I have never considered buying a dual land and I don't care if I'm "missing out on good investments" or whatever, duals and fetches I consider OP for casual purposes and I don't play competitive; if I suddenly got insanely into Legacy then all my opinions would have to reverse but I just don't find it likely.

there's a complex trigger inside some of us which makes you look at a thing and think "this is what I've always wanted, and I'd expend anything to get it as soon as possible" and that's called infatuation and then when the infatuation passes you've married a bit of cardboard called Bayou

[MeowZeDung]

there's a complex trigger inside some of us which makes you look at a thing and think "this is what I've always wanted, and I'd expend anything to get it as soon as possible" and that's called infatuation and then when the infatuation passes you've married a bit of cardboard called Bayou

I loled, not gonna lie. But keep in mind, people spend absolute fortunes on movies, food, video games, cars, houses, alcohol, etc., so if someone gets joy from a super tuned hyper efficient cEDH deck and had the discretionary funds, more power to them and their bayou

[folding_music]

Yeah, I'd never tell someone else that, because I have a certain stance, that theirs should be the same! Knock yrself out if you wanna entirely pimp out a "powered" EDH deck :3 i was just explaining how I approached pricy cards.

[DirkGently]

I don't really consider duals and fetches to be overpowered. I mean, they do break the balance of what is "fair" in terms of land efficiency, but where that level of efficiency is really important in legacy or whatever, in commander it's pretty small potatoes. A deck with a perfect beautiful manabase that's powering out a 75% Xenagod deck is still probably going to get stomped into oblivion by a 4c combo deck using painlands and temples. Sure, it matters a bit if everyone is already playing cEDH, but at a normal casual table having a perfect manabase is a pretty small edge tbh (though it can matter a lot more if you're abusing fetches i.e. with LFTL or crucible).

[Gashnaw]

I have done this test before and while Dual lands do help decks that run them, it comes down to how many you run. My dragon deck runs all 10 so it is very helpful, but i also run all 10 shocks and all 10 fetches, so my mana base is powerful. But i have tried with replacing the Duals with 2 of each basic and while the deck still performed well it did decrease the power significantly. Likewise i tested this on a 3 color deck, and very minimal change happened, and i tested it on a 2 color and there was almost no change. That is why there is a difference. 10 vs 3 vs 1.

Now that said, no newbie should EVER be purchasing dual lands. I just pointed out that there is no need to actually run them. If you have them great, if you have disposable income, great. You should never go out of your way to purchase the dual lands unless you are running a 5 color deck and are not afraid of Ruination or Back to basics.

Some card to me hold a lot more value than the actual price tag, simply due to sentimental value. When i was younger my favorite card was Stone Kavu That card was beat up and dirty but the most important card to me, as it won me many games. Sentimental value may make even a simple 10 cent common worth more than any other card in the game. Even a foil version of that card may be worth less to you.

There is one guy i know who still has his kitchen table deck. It is trash, but he won;t change it since it was his first deck. The card are damaged and dirty (Since he did not sleeve it) and wrapped in an elastic band. but it is his deck. It is worth more to him than any other card in magic. (And he has no P9 or anything worth a lot of money, it is all cheap inexpensive items. I could replicate the deck for maybe 10 bucks. (tops) with better condition cards, and sleeved.

[pokken]

Fetches are probably about 5x higher power level than duals in EDH if I had to throw out a number, and I always recommend people get those first particularly for 3 color decks. Being able to play essentially 3-color lands that etb untapped and do not constantly ping you like confluence and city is just, well, it's hugely powerful.

I do play them in 2c decks but they're far less important there.

Running at least 5-ish fetchlands is probably the single biggest thing you can do to make a manabase run smooth. Running more lets you play Tango lands too which is awesome.

[FoxOfWar]

Biggest limiter for me is that I have a lot of decks (34 to be exact). Therefore, any single card's 'worth' is divvied up by the sheer amount of decks I have. I have a tendency to skip buying anything more than 5€ simply because I am not going to see any particular card in that's just in a single deck exactly very often. I don't want to buy a 40€ card if I am going to see it in action few times a year.

To wit: in an average game you end up seeing, say, third to a half of your deck. I play mayhap ten to fifteen games a month due to my LGS being bit of a distance away. Any given time I go, I pick up five decks out of those 34. Odds of me seeing any particular deck addition aren't exactly high.

I'm also way more likely to drop money on something that actually affects the board instead of 'just' improving my mana. My manabases are roughly at the point where the Battlebond duals and Shocks are on my faster decks, rest do with any variety of almost-as-good duals... from that point the gain to improve my mana vs. the cost of it would go WAY overboard for me.

But, of note, I don't place a lot of value on winning games and I play pretty darn casual. I play to construct whatever my stupid gameplan du jour is, and even if I lose after constructing and once executing whatever my Rube Goldberg creation does, I'm happy. That definitely affects how much I'm willing to put on 'better' cards.

[NZB2323]

There's supposed to be a lot of "good reprints" in the commander product this year, so it might be the wrong time to buy staples right now.

I may be the wrong person to ask when it comes to this topic. I buy proxies for cards and own an Edric deck that only had commons and cost $30. At the same time, when I get a raise or it's my birthday, I'll get some cards for my deck, but I'm not buying original dual lands. I play Nature's Revolt in Captain Sisay because I don't want to dish out money for living plane. I play idol of oblivion in Edgar Markov because I don't want to pay for wheel of fortune.

[schweinefett]

There's supposed to be a lot of "good reprints" in the commander product this year, so it might be the wrong time to buy staples right now.

I may be the wrong person to ask when it comes to this topic. I buy proxies for cards and own an Edric deck that only had commons and cost $30. At the same time, when I get a raise or it's my birthday, I'll get some cards for my deck, but I'm not buying original dual lands. I play Nature's Revolt in Captain Sisay because I don't want to dish out money for living plane. I play idol of oblivion in Edgar Markov because I don't want to pay for wheel of fortune.

idol of oblivion doesn't do the same thing as wheel of fortune though...?

The question of worth is always relative to how much disposable income one has, and how much they plan on getting into the game. I happen to play other eternal formats, so duals are worth splurging on. On the other hand, just 'cuz i have my zedruu deck with a 'near-perfect' manabase, it doesn't mean that the rest of the deck is nearly as awesome. It only means that i've a lower chance of getting colour-screwed (which is important).

Anyways, there are serious downsides to playing non-basics heavy anyways. blood moon, price of progress, ruination are somewhat heavily played in my meta. It is quite worth watching some of my mate's faces when they slam a ruination, and watch me lose 4-5 lands in one swoop. good fun!

[NZB2323]

There's supposed to be a lot of "good reprints" in the commander product this year, so it might be the wrong time to buy staples right now.

I may be the wrong person to ask when it comes to this topic. I buy proxies for cards and own an Edric deck that only had commons and cost $30. At the same time, when I get a raise or it's my birthday, I'll get some cards for my deck, but I'm not buying original dual lands. I play Nature's Revolt in Captain Sisay because I don't want to dish out money for living plane. I play idol of oblivion in Edgar Markov because I don't want to pay for wheel of fortune.

idol of oblivion doesn't do the same thing as wheel of fortune though...?

The question of worth is always relative to how much disposable income one has, and how much they plan on getting into the game. I happen to play other eternal formats, so duals are worth splurging on. On the other hand, just 'cuz i have my zedruu deck with a 'near-perfect' manabase, it doesn't mean that the rest of the deck is nearly as awesome. It only means that i've a lower chance of getting colour-screwed (which is important).

Anyways, there are serious downsides to playing non-basics heavy anyways. blood moon, price of progress, ruination are somewhat heavily played in my meta. It is quite worth watching some of my mate's faces when they slam a ruination, and watch me lose 4-5 lands in one swoop. good fun!

In Edgar Markov, both Wheel of Fortune and Idol of Oblivion serve as card draw, I play a low curve list that mainly consists of vampires that cost 1 or 2 mana, so Wheel of fortune can be cast with an empty hand and allows you to draw 7. With Edgar's eminence ability and so many vampires, idol of oblivion can act as a Phyrexian Arena that cost 1 less mana and doesn't cause life loss.