Darn you Age of Conan and the evil Flash vulnerability released this week!

Hey all, this will be a short post for the moment. I've been a touch busy trying to fix some issues -- mostly trying to repair some issues related to the recent Flash vulnerability on my home network.

Don't panic -- this site is safe -- but please do go to

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

and upgrade your version of Flash to protect yourself from some malicious software issues. Especially if you play World of Warcraft or any other big online game ... and I'm assuming you play MTGO if you're visiting here.

A couple of the larger WoW sites have been exploited through this vulnerability, and I hear PureMTGO has had issues as well. Fortunately, both WotC and Blizzard keep database records of transactions -- so I doubt there will be any large-scale damage to the economy at large -- but there is definitely room for individuals to get hurt by the sort of folks who hack accounts to sell the contents to unknowing customers.

For right now, be just a touch extra careful -- and if someone you don't know offers you a deal that's too good to be true -- be just a touch extra wary. I'd stick to dealing with folks I trust for a bit until the issue gets resolved.

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

My other big time waster this week is Age of Conan. I've been playing around with it for the last little while since it's release -- and it's definitely a different take on the post-WoW philosophy for MMOs. I haven't played enough to say whether it's good or bad, but it is worth checking out if you're so inclined. Be aware, it is rated for "Mature" audiences -- and yes, female characters can run about with their naked boobies bouncing around. Plus, there's "Fatalities" in the game play where every so often, you get a particularly grisly death when you kill a NPC or another player. If you want to know more about what I think of the game -- flip me an e-mail and I'll be more than happy to tell you.

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

Okay, back to the business of MTGO for just a moment. I've played a lot of standard games in the casual room this week -- and I think the two cheap rares (less than a ticket, often 2-for-1) that have worked out really well for me have been Voice of All and Story Circle. Those two cards are a near death sentence to any mono-colored deck, and can also make it tough on a two-color deck that runs it's second color for removal or direct damage.

I played a Black-Red goblins deck the other night, and with a Voice of All set to protection from Black and a Story Circle set to protection from Red -- I kept my opponent locked out from a lot of his normal game play options. When you combine those two cards with some other flexible White removal spells, like Disenchant and Oblivion Ring -- you have the basis for a good cheap deck. Heck, add in some 4-for-1 ticket Serra Angels, and you have 75% of a deck.

Kind of like this one:

Those Pesky Angels (Standard)

Land

4 Quicksand
4 New Benalia
16 Plains

Creatures

4 Serra Angel
4 Voice of All
4 Angel of Mercy
1 Reya Dawnbringer
1 Angel of Salvation
1 Platinum Angel
3 Malach of the Dawn

Spells

4 Oblivion Ring
2 Disenchant
2 Crib Swap
1 Spirit Link
1 Spirit Loop
4 Story Circle
3 Sunscour (The poor Djinn's Wrath of God!)
1 Akroma's Memorial


The Platinum Angel is a bit pricey, but it's easily replaceable. The Akroma's Memorial is kind of superfluous as well -- but it's more a fun card than anything else. You can build this whole deck for around 10-15 tickets depending on how much time you take putting into getting the cards. I really love the Sunscour. It's a really cheap WoG for the deck -- both in terms of ticket cost and in casting cost. Sunscour will really punish a player for overcommitting to a lot of critters on the board to try and out race the Story Circle -- and the ability to pay the alternate casting cost and then follow it up with a Serra Angel or Angel of Mercy can really cripple an aggressive deck that had you down low on life.

The Oblivion Rings are the best cheap removal spell in Standard right now. Disenchant is always good as are the Crib Swaps. The biggest problem the deck seems to have is with aggressive decks that can get around the Story Circle with either multiple colors of creatures/damage -- or artifact sources of damage. The deck will sometimes get pushed around by a true control deck, since it relies heavily upon resolving a few key spells each game. The deck itself works more like a toolbox deck, meaning it has different ways to win from one game to the next. Sometimes you're the agro deck, playing spells every turn and using the Angels in beatdown mode -- and other times, it's very reactive ... especially in those games where you can hide behind the Story Circle and deal with the opponent's other threats retroactively with the Crib Swap and Oblivion Ring.

Anyway, give the deck a spin if you like it. Or catch me online and I'll play you in a game or two!

Later,

Don!

Playing in a Standard PDC tourney ... or how I learned how to hate Goblins in just three short hours!

I knew I should have voted for Goblins in last week’s poll of most hated tribes. I played in my first Standard PDC event Thursday night, and all I saw were those pointy-nosed demons of doom on the other side of the virtual table across from me!

Unfortunately, the Goblins got the best of me – taking 2 out of 3 games from me in the Swiss portion of the event – but every game was close. Oh, and as a random thought, why are Goblins green – but normally on Red cards?

I played my Faerie Burn deck, with a few modifications since the last time I tested it in the PDC and Casual rooms. At the 9 p.m. close of entries, 26 players had entered the tourney for 3-rounds of Swiss pairings followed by a Top 8 final.

Here's my deck for the evening. It should look familiar to my regular readers.

PDC Burning Faeries v2.3

MAINDECK

4 Latchkey Faerie
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Pestermite
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Mudbutton Torchrunner
2 Mulldrifter

4 Broken Ambitions
4 Incinerate
4 Lash Out
4 Ponder
2 Unsummon

11 Island
7 Mountain
4 Terramorphic Expanse

SIDEBOARD

4 Remove Soul
3 Hurly-Burly
2 Mudbutton Torchrunner
2 Mulldrifter
2 Sentinels of Glen Elendra
2 Unsummon

In the first round, I played Zipstein who was playing … wait for it … GOBLINS! He led off with a Raging Goblin, Mogg War Marshal and then … Fiery Temper? I had to think that through for a minute. Fiery Temper is a common in Tempest, and legal in Standard – but only because it was reprinted as a purple-rarity card in Time Spiral. That means it’s Standard legal, but not Standard PDC legal – at least I didn’t think so.

Zipstein didn’t know the card’s legality either, so we continued playing while waiting for Icrodx (the tourney organizer) to pop in and tell us what to do. I watched my life whittle away but eventually stabilized at 3 life with a pair of Pestermites and a Looter il-Kor on the board. I countered an Incinerate pointed at my dome with a Spellstutter Sprite, and knocked him down to 5 with enough creatures on the board to win the next turn – but he drew another Fiery Temper (darn that card again!) and killed me dead.

However, somewhere between the first Fiery Temper and the one that killed me, Icarodx came over to the room and let us know that the card wasn’t legal – and worse, it was a match loss infraction for Zipstein. He could continue in the event – but he would have to replace the Fiery Tempers in his deck. I felt really bad about how that turn of events turned out – and I wanted to help Zipstein if I could. He asked if I had any Bloodshot Cyclops – and I gave him three from my 10^th Edition playset – since I’m not using them in any decks at the moment.

So after my first 20 minutes of playing in a serious PDC tourney, I’m at 1-0, but feeling like poo about it. But, life goes on, and about 30 minutes later the pairings for Round 2 came down from Icardox.

I get a PM from Roynot who has started a match for me to enter and play. I lost the roll, and Roynot played a mountain and passed. I kept a solid hand with two Looters and a Spellstutter Faerie and a Ponder. I played an Island, Pondered my next three cards, and kept a Mountain from the draw. Roynot started his next turn and played another mountain and … wait for it … a GOBLIN! An Emberwilde Augur to be specific. I untapped and played a Looter, then Roynot untapped and played another Augur, while burning my Looter. I ate 2 from the first Augur and he passed the turn. I played a land and a second Looter, then passed the turn. Roynot once again burned the Looter and then sent his pair of Augurs at me for 4 damage. This begun an annoying cycle for the next two turns – I play a critter, he burns it and attacks for 4. Not long after, one of the Augurs goes to my dome for lethal damage during his upkeep.

Game 2, I get to go first. I get a Pestermite to stick when I counter his burn with a Spellstutter. I eventually get six power of flying faerie on the board and end the game quickly. On to Game 3!

This game has to be one of the coolest games I’ve ever played in MTGO. We both have good games, and he is bleeding me to death with an Augur followed up by a pair of Needle Drops. I have a Pestermite down, an active Looter and a rogue-cast Latchkey Faerie doing damage on the board. Roynot has played a lot of land and poked me a bit in tactical battle. At the mid-game, I have him down to 12, and he has me at 9. I draw an Incinerate to go along with the Lash Out I have in my hand. I attack him down to 6, and I know he’s holding a bit of burn in his hand. I don’t want to go to his upkeep when he can sac the Augur and possibly burn me to death.

So I cast the Lash Out on his Augur and win the clash with a Pestermite over his Incinerate. I only have the one counter left, and it’s a Broken Ambitions which is mostly useless as Roynot has a lot of land on the board. So I go for the win with an Incinerate to the dome.

Bad move.

Did I mention I’m at 9 life? With lethal Incinerate damage on the stack, Roynot hits me with an Incinerate, followed by a Shard Volley. I cast my Broken Ambitions for a measly one in response, just to hopefully get him to tap enough mana to not be able to cast anything. He taps an extra land to pay for the soft counter and follows up with a second Shard Volley. 3+3+3 damage at the end of my turn = dead Djinn. So I almost won. Almost.

Now I’m in the 1-1 bracket and needing to win my final match to have a chance to make Top 8. One of the best things about the PDC tourneys is that there’s only three matches of Swiss. So it’s not a big commitment if you’re not going to have a chance to win. Win 2 of 3 and you’re likely to make Top 8, lose more than one and you can do something else with your evening. A number of these tourneys also have door prizes – but not the one for this evening. So you can win without winning a thing sometimes. As for me, if I want to win anything this evening, I have to win my last Swiss match. If I was lucky, maybe I would get something other than Goblins.

My third round opponent was Teliot. And the first land he played after winning the dice roll was an Island! Outstanding. I played a Terramorphic Expanse and sacked it for a Mountain and we both played Islands on our next turns. I tapped my island and mountain for a Looter, and he responded with a Remove Soul. Teliot dropped a Mountain on his next turn and passed. No Goblins yet, that’s a good sign. I played another looter and passed. During Teliot’s next turn he Tarfired the Looter and suspended an Errant Ephemeron. Hmm, Tarfire is a goblin tribal spell … bad sign perhaps?

Well the next few turns were uneventful with the exception of me getting a hard-cast Latchkey to stick on Turn 6. Unfortunately, getting him to stick left me tapped out. During Teliot’s next turn he cast a Ponder, burned the Latchkey with another Tarfire and then played Empty the Warrens.

I now officially hate Goblins. Especially the six staring me in the face from Teliot’s side of the board.

On my next turn, I drop a land, Looter and evoke Mulldrifter for two cards. No help. The Errant comes out of suspension and two turns later, I’m toast from those darn goblins and a flying 4/4.

Off to Game 2. I have three copies of Hurly-Burly in my sideboard, just in case of the mirror match or a herd of 1/1s. Empty the Warrens makes 1/1s – so in goes the Hurly-Burlies. I also kept spare Unsummons for the Errants, a card I considered for my sideboard as well. So with those changes in place, off we go. The game was actually uneventful. I got an active looter down on Turn 2 and saved him from a Tarfire on Turn 3 with a Spellstutter. Teliot said he hated those darn faeries – and played PDC a lot just to avoid them. I kept the pressure on with my small flying armada – while Teliot made six goblins on Turn 6 again. Fortunately, I had the Hurly in hand, and the game in hand after casting it on my next turn. Teliot had six land, not seven – so he suspended an Errant, and never lived long enough to see it come out.

Match Three, Game Three. Do or die. Teliot went first, and dropped a Martyr of Ashes. That really sucked for me, seeing as I kept a three Looter draw. I played the first Looter on Turn 2, and took a few points of Martyr beatdown, when the Martyr offed itself when I attacked with the looter on Turn 3. I played a second Looter, who met Mr. Tarfire as the turn ended. I played a third Looter on my next turn, and protected it with a Spellstutter. On the next turn, I played a Latchkey with rogue and felt good about life, since I also had a Spellstutter to protect them from anything casting 3 or less.

Teliot untapped, and casually pointed an Incinerate at my Latchkey. I spellstuttered and felt good about life.

For about two seconds.

Teliot pondered, cast another Martyr, and then he introduced me to his other stormy friend – Mr. Grapeshot. Mr. Grapeshot didn’t like Mr. Looter, Mr. Latchkey or the Spellstutter sisters. Or me. Ouch. So my board was clear, and all I had in my hand was another Latchkey and a Terramorphic I was saving to pitch to Mr. Looter the next turn. Teliot suspended a 3/1 blue shadow creature and I hard cast a Mulldrifter for two cards and a warm 2/2 flying body. A turn later, Telliot’s shadow critter came out, the Mulldrifter was Incinerated and the Latchkey burned. Oh, and 8 1/1 goblins stopped in for tea over at Telliot’s house too.

I drew a ponder, and pondered looking at two Islands and my last looter. So I pondered shuffling my library and hoped like heck for a Hurly-Burly. I got another Ponder and pondered up three cards not named Hurly-Burly. I shuffled up a Latchkey and cast it. My flying 3/1 met a random goblin on Teliot’s next turn and I drew an Incinerate to flambé the 3/1 shadow critter. Unfortunately that left 7 goblins on the wrong side of the table – and drawing and playing a Pestermite and a sideboarded Remove Soul didn’t help.

Death by goblins again. But hey, at least I could still get in bed by midnight.

I really enjoyed playing in this PDC tourney. It felt a lot like playing in a tourney back in my old paper Magic shop. The folks in the chatroom were generally friendly, as were the players. Icardox was nice to both me and Zipstein when we had problems in the first match, and I’m looking forward to playing in some future events. The whole event felt almost … human – as opposed to the antiseptic environment found in the game’s official sanctioned events. Players talked, some talked smack, others joked – and everyone actually seemed to be part of a community.

All in all I give the experience two big thumbs up. If you’re interested in a good, cheap entry to the world of competitive (while still casual) tourney Magic – PDC is highly recommended. In the next month or so, I hope to get a bit further back in my commons collection – and then I’ll play some Extended and Future-Extended PDC events.

Until then – I hope you enjoyed this post. As always, let me know if I can be of help to anyone out there and feel free to chat me up or play me a game in the MTGO casual room when you can catch me there!

Later,

Don!

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

Bonus: PDC Burning Faeries v2.4 (based on last night!)
The biggest change was in finding answers for smaller creature swarms and more actual useable choices in the sideboard. I never felt comfortable with having the Sentinels in there and never used them – and I really wished I had 8 Hurly-Burly in there too. The Martyr of Ashes solves those problems – at least I think they would. If you can get the Rune Snags, I'd put them in over the Negates and Remove Souls in the main deck.

PDC Burning Faeries v2.4

MAINDECK

4 Latchkey Faerie
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Pestermite
4 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Martyr of Ashes
2 Mulldrifter

2 Remove Soul
2 Negate
4 Incinerate
4 Lash Out
4 Ponder
2 Unsummon

11 Island
7 Mountain
4 Terramorphic Expanse

SIDEBOARD

2 Remove Soul
2 Negate
4 Hurly-Burly
2 Mulldrifter
2 Unsummon
3 Errant Ephemeron

Weekend PDC

I really wanted to hold off on this column until I had a chance to play in a PDC tourney, but the evil RL (real life) is seriously interfering with both my MTGO and World of Warcraft time this week.

I'm really comfortable with my Blue/Red Faeries deck in PDC at the moment. I'm set on about 56-58 cards at any given time. The biggest questions I have, pre-tourney revolve around the Mudbutton Torchrunners. I've been running four, but I've been siding them out as much as any card between games in a match. Usually, I'll side out two for the last two Lash Out(s) or sometimes all four for a combination of Lash Outs and Remove Souls. I also realized I'm somehow short one Unsummon -- so I have to make sure I pick one up from the MTGO Traders card bot the next time I can remember. I'm glad they credited the account from earlier, it's let me pick up a few commons I missed before.

Anyway, I'm currently trying to find a good Standard PDC format tourney to play in this week. I'm not sure how much is going on over the upcoming holiday weekend -- but it's a four-day holiday for me. However, I also have to coordinate with the wife and kids -- and I'm sure they have dreams about things like sunshine, the beach, movies ... Indiana Jones does come out this weekend -- and that's a "Must See" in my household. But, as soon as I can get a good tourney under my belt -- I'll be back to tell you all about it.

Until then, I've learned a few things in playing PDC in MTGO.

The first thing is how few people read the game descriptions in the casual room. I'll advertise my games as "PDC Decks Please" or "PDC" or even "PDC DECKS (ALL COMMONS) ONLY" ... and 2/3rds of the time -- I still see other random standard decks. It's not so bad when the person honestly didn't realize what they were clicking -- but when a person busts out a Llanowar Wastes, BoP first turn, and Doran on the second ... I just think they're looking for an easy win to boost their ego. Especially when they try to drop the Thoughtsieze on the next turn.

Ehh, it happens -- and I've actually beat a couple of those decks once or twice -- with a few mysterious disconnects when I have fatal damage on the stack. That makes me chuckle.

I've also noticed a lot of folks playing pseudo-PDC decks with the Vivid lands. Some players didn't realize they''re uncommon -- others thought you can play PDC with up to 5 uncommons, and others gave various rationalizations. The Vivid lands don't bug me in the least for the format, and they usually wind up being less effective than using Expanses in the same decks, at least in my opinion. I love the Vivid lands for my 5-color budget decks, but even if they were PDC-legal, I have yet to see a deck that really was worth their come-into-play-tapped clause worth it.

As far as any sort of scouting report, I'd say I saw a lot of mono-white Kithkin decks, and a number of R/G warrior decks as well. Both seem pretty solid, but I'd be interested in playing them in a tourney since I think I've handled them well in casual match play. I've seen a few sliver decks, and a few mono-blue control decks as well. One of the better games I played this week involved a mono-blue deck where I had a pair of Pestermites go all the way past a couple of counter wars involving his Errant Ephemerons and my Looter il-Kors. The last turn involved him countering a third Pestermite at the end of his turn, keeping his Errant from being tapped -- only to have me top deck another Pestermite.

Another thing I noticed was that some PDC decks aren't cheap -- even in standard. The above mentioned mono-blue deck ran all Snow-Covered Islands and all four copies of Rune Snag, and the best R/U deck I saw featured Snow-Covered mountains along with their Island counterparts -- and I don't think anything in this format can survive a 12-point Skred. I'm just thankful they can't point that at the dome -- or the format would be seriously doinked!

Okay, let me transition back to what I'm planning for this week. There's a SPDC event hosted by MTGO Traders scheduled for Thursday night at 8:30 p.m. EST -- at least according to the calendar. I hope to be there and play if it goes off -- and if not, I'll bust my humps to put together a future extended deck for the regularly scheduled Sunday event run by the PCDMagic.com folks.

In building a deck for future extended, I'm leaning towards either running my current standard deck almost as is except for a few sideboard options -- or building a White-Blue control deck. I do loves me some Oblivion Ring ... and I've really learned that a protected Errant Ephemeron can be pretty annoying. I fear for swarms of Elves and such though, so I might have to make it an All-American R/U/W deck much along the same designs. I'll have to see what's available to me at this point though, since all the cards I've picked up along the way have been standard.

Okay, as for the poll to the right this week. I've noticed about half the decks in the casual room right now are strictly tribal based. I've also noticed a fair amount of hate for Faeries and Kithkin and Merfolk decks from folks in the room. I don't really mind, and I normally love to play a tribal deck -- but since the last few blocks have kind of force fed that concept to us -- are these decks really casual any more?

Anyway, let me know what your LEAST favorite tribal deck is right now -- and I'll make sure to avoid it in my cheap decks lists coming up after another couple of PDC posts.

As always -- thanks for reading!

Later,

Don!

You want it -- you got it!

Okay, it seems a lot of folks want to see some PDC coverage here. So, I'm going to give it the old college try!

But, I bet my PDC deck comes in at under 5 tickets as well -- so I can kill at least two birds with one stone. Heck, I might even practice in the Casual Room ... that would be three birds! And if I had a deck that maximizes the synergy of a certain card or two ... well, you get the point.

My first stop is going to be to explore the world of PDC this weekend. So keep an eye out for Thrifty Djinn in all the PDC hangouts online -- and offline as well. I'm not above pimping out a good website or service, so make sure to check out www.pdcmagic.com or type /join pdc in any MTGO dialog box to join the PDC room. (Thanks for the info to plug, Andy!)

Anyway, here's the deck I'm planning to play with and improve over the next week or so. Since it's PDC, I'm pretty darn sure that it's less than 5 tickets -- especially since there's no Rune Snags in there. This is the deck I've been playing a bit in paper, and it works well online ... well, at least so far!

PDC Faeries and Burn (v2.1)

Creatures (20)

4 - Latchkey Faerie
4 - Mudbutton Torchrunner
4 - Muldrifter
4 - Pestermite
4 - Spellstutter Sprite

Spells (16)

4 - Broken Ambitions
4 - Incinerate
4 - Ponder
2 - Unsummon
2 - Lash Out

Lands (24)

12 - Island
8 - Mountain
4 - Terramorphic Expanse

The sideboard's in flux, and I'll post that a bit later on when I'm more comfortable with it. I'lll also go into a bit of detail on how this deck came to be -- but that's in the 5-ticket deck post, and the next one is going to be all about the fun you can have playing PDC!

Later,

Don!

Happy Anniversary!

Well, one month ago today -- The Thrifty Djinn was born. The actual blog you see here will hit its first month anniversary next Wednesday, but I've been at this a month now -- and I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out.

I'm still working on some rough edges, but overall the timing and spacing of the blog is right where I'd like it to be. I'm past the initial rough edges of building a new online collection, with 1,913 cards and a number of solid casual decks for just under $45. I feel like I could plunk another $15 into the kitty right now, but I also feel like I don't have to.

I have my three favorite tribal decks up and running in the casual room, so if you see me in there -- send me a message and I'll be more than happy to play a game or two. My Angel and Merfolk decks are particularly solid -- and the 5-color Dragon deck doesn't suck. Well, sometimes they all kind of suck -- but that's the way the game goes.

Okay, at this point -- I'm willing to play 'Choose Your Own Adventure' with the blog. Check out the poll to the right.

Do you want to see the next post be about specific decks? The official "Building on a Budget" decks cost 30 tickets. I think I can build a deck at least 90% as good for 1/6th the price -- 5 ticket decks that don't suck. Maybe I can get an official sponsor to actually sell the darn deck, but if not I'll at least point you in the right direction.

How about PDC coverage? I can put together a PDC deck and play in a few tourneys. In this case, I might suck though. But, I can always find folks (and decks) that don't suck -- and tell you about them!

Single card strategies? Cards you MUST have? Heck, I could extol the virtues of Terramorphic Expanse all day, but I do have a sweet spot for Steamflogger Boss too. And I'm sure there's a audience for finding out the more than 7 ways you can kill someone with a Mudhole.

Life in the Casual Room? You're going to be spending a lot of time there as a casual player in MTGO, and there's a lot of little tips and tricks you can use to make playing there a lot more fun. I can also tell you the three things you should NEVER put in your deck description, and the five best reasons for putting someone on your friends or block lists!

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking about for this blog on a Friday night -- let me know what you would want to see. As always, feel free to post here on the boards, drop me an e-mail at thrifty.djinn@gmail.com or just catch me in game!

Later,

Don!

Which MTGO stores give you the most mana and merfolk (and Angels) for your money?

Thank goodness it’s May! That let me tap into the new month’s funds and start fleshing out some solid decks for the casual room – plus check out the MTGO stores to see who gives me the most cards for my money …

I've just completed the last in-game trade for my first MTGO shopping review. One consistent thing about all four sites I visited was their professional and prompt service. From the first order confirmation to the last delivery from all four sites took less than two-and-a-half hours.

I started my shopping review with a goal of spending my last 10 initial dollars on as much product to complete my casual decks as possible. To that end, I made a shopping list of commons, uncommons and rares in those decks that I thought a budget player would like to assemble at some point. I then went to each of the four sites and priced the items. I decided I would buy the lot of items from the shop with the best overall value for the lot, with an emphasis on availability and price. I’ll show you my initial list below, along with the advertised prices for each card. The prices shown are single card prices. If a card belongs in multiple sets, I selected the cheapest variation of each.

As you can see, the individual card prices are pretty close together for most cards. The biggest percentage differences were in the highest and lowest priced cards. Of course, there’s only a seven cent difference in the price of a Spirit Link – but that’s more than a 200% markup from the lowest to highest price. The price of the Platinum Angel was only a 33% swing from high to low, but that’s a full 50 cent difference between $1.50 and $2.00.

Okay, so who's the winner of Thrifty Djinn's hard earned cash? The answer is actually ‘All Of The Above.’ – But some stores won more of my cash than others!

Based on my criteria, ABU gets the first-place award because they presented the lowest price for all the cards I wanted.

Cardhoarder gets second place and was oh-so-close, and if not for the absence of a certain red instant – they would left me perfectly impressed. If they had had the two extra copies of Incinerate I was looking for, they would have finished a few cents cheaper than ABU.

Cardshark finished a solid third, and along with ABU, were the only two stores to have all the singles I wanted to buy in stock and showing online. In this case, ABU had the best price after their 10% discount for PayPal and was a bit more straight forward in how they work. Cardshark could have actually been cheaper, except that they add a 35 cent surcharge on to each different vendor you purchase from, and a one dollar minimum for each of those mini-transactions. (I’ll explain more in my detailed review of each store – but Cardshark is a different animal from the other three stores in the way they’re set up to do business.)

Finally, MTGO Traders was a solid fourth place -- and could have easily finished first because they had consistently good prices, but they were showing as out of stock on a lot of items. The prices for their cards and PayPal discount put them in the running, but unfortunately (as I’ll also explain later) they’re the store seemingly most (and worst) affected by the programming issues in MTGO’s v3 release.

Okay, on to the store by store review! (Click on the stores name to jump to their site)

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

ABU (ABUgames)

This was the store that had everything I wanted at the lowest price. Their website was clean, and their search engine for finding cards pretty straight forward. Items were easily placed in the basket and ready for checkout. The list of all the prices from the cart to the checkout was itemized and easily understandable. One thing to note, is that ABU's (and some of the other site's) base price for their cards is measured in MTGO tickets. That makes it easy for people in game to have the extra security of keeping the transaction completely within the MTGO client – but it can make the initial price seem a bit higher if you’re planning to pay with your credit card or directly through PayPal. Like all four of the stores I visited today, ABU accepts PayPal payments – and in their case offers a flat 10% for paying in PayPal over tickets.

I placed my order through the store and then payment through PayPal and then was instructed to meet with the store’s account in game. One of the funny experiences in trading this evening was looking at the ratings for the ABU store account. Not many store accounts have over a 1,750 limited rating. Delivery of my items was prompt and courteous. It took less than 30 minutes to receive my cards after ordering them at 6 p.m. on a Friday night. The folks running ABU said they didn’t offer any set discounts – but relied on their consistently low prices to keep customers. One other big bonus is that ABU offers full playsets of commons and uncommons – cheaper than eBay, at least in my experience from last week. Their 10% PayPal discount and wide selection made them a solid choice to spend the majority of my hard-earned MTGO budget this month.

Cardhoarder

The Cardhoarder site was probably the best designed site of the bunch, and their prices were the lowest card-by-card most of the time. The only thing that kept me from spending my initial money there was a shortage of Incinerates according to the store’s website. Since I wanted to be able to review each of the store’s ability to deliver product – I went ahead and dipped into The Thrifty Djinn’s cache for the month of May. In this case, I bought a play set of Vesuvas for my decks. I think the Vesuva/Cloudpost combo is one of the most consistent high-mana engines in Extended – and a lot of my budget decks will start with this six dollar combo.

The Cardhoarder site is colorful, efficient, clean and easy to navigate. I can easily say that this site is only a few Incinerates away from being the best of the bunch – pretty close to hands down. Their search engine and navigation helps you to find cards quickly, and each selection has a full card graphic link to place your selection in the card. Cardhoarder also accepts event tickets and PayPal – plus they take Euros. They offer a 13% discount for cash (non-ticket) purchases – making their first-rate prices even better. The only negative about their site was when you place the first item into the basket, the confirmation pop-up box often comes right up over where you want to click for an additional item. Like ABU, completing the selection process takes you straight to PayPal to pay for the transaction. The Cardhoarder account in game completed my transaction in less than an hour after receiving the funds – and it would have been even quicker, except that I was AFK for a bit playing paper Magic with my son. All-in-all, I give my highest budget recommendation to Cardhoarder – they have a slick site and great prices – and more than 90% of the cards I wanted in stock.

Cardshark

Cardshark is the odd duck of this bunch. They’re not a single store, they’re more of a middle man for buyers and sellers in game. The biggest advantage of the Cardshark business model is that you’re almost guaranteed to have every card in stock – in this case, they were one of only two in the survey who could say that. The disadvantage is that you’re actually liable to pay more for what you’re looking for if you’re not careful. For example, Cardhorder (the store above this one in the review) is one of the accounts that uses Cardshark as a middle man. You can always get the card cheaper directly from Cardhoarder – but if you didn’t know any better, at least Cardshark provides a solid matchmaking service. The other disadvantage of Cardshark is the matchmaking fee of .35 it charges for each transaction, plus the one dollar minimum fee. You can avoid a large chunk of that by sticking to the same dealer within Cardshark and by making all your smaller common/uncommon purchases together. Something that's made easier through the pop up box that's displayed when you make a selection. I'd advise sticking to the same dealer throughout when possible to make the most of your money.

However, I don't you can’t beat Cardshark if you’re simply looking for the best price on a single card. Since so many different dealers are essentially competing for your business right there on the one site, the competition for your dollar can be fierce for bigger ticket items. (Especially for the two-mana green creature who will not be mentioned on this site ...) I would highly recommend Cardshark for making a purchase of more than $10 or so, simply because of the different way their model operates insures a good price.

One thing the site does well is in how it grades different dealers. CardShark has three preferred levels of sellers: Great Whites, Hammerheads and Landsharks -- and gives them an icon on the end of their name. Look for the dealers with the GreatWhite symbol and you’re pretty much assured of getting a good deal.

In my case, I bought two Akroma, Angel of Fury cards and a Luminous Angel from ccgbot through Cardshark. Like the other stores, the service was prompt and courteous. After entering the trade, I realized I had bought the wrong version of Akroma (I wanted Akroma, Angel of Wrath) and he offered to help me change the selection. I told him it was my mistake – but appreciated his desire to make the customer happy. Ccgbot is definitely a good example of the best sort of seller from Cardshark. He said he was just getting started in his relationship with Cardshark from MTGO cards, and only sold about $100 in digital cards through them to date – however, he said he had sold more than $3,000 in paper cards, so this is a good indicator of a seller with a long-term investment in Magic as a whole. In the end, I may not like Cardshark as much as the other sellers for my budget needs, but for a single card value – they may be the ones to beat.

MTGO Traders

I’ll be honest, I think these folks might be the nicest of the bunch – but they’re definitely the one’s hurt most by the issues with v3 right now. The MTGO Traders site is clean, easy to navigate and their prices are consistently low. Unfortunately, their web site isn’t able to keep up with the store’s holdings online – so they don’t seem to have as much in stock as the other stores. That’s the only real knock I have on the entire site – it’s just about as easy to use as Cardhoarder’s site and the prices are similar and maybe better depending on the card selection. It was really easy to put about five dollars of Angels and Elves into the cart, and quick enough to get though the site and PayPal to pay.

MTGO Traders advertises store hours of 9am-3am Monday to Friday, and 11am-2am Saturday and Sunday (EST - GMT -4). In this case, the store account was already online and ready to trade almost as soon as I sent the payment to the store. One valuable piece of info I overlooked was that there's a coupon code box inside the shopping cart, you need to type 'paypal' in the box and click on "apply coupon" to get a 12% discount. The discount applies on orders over $5 and to cards only, so it doesn’t count for tickets boosters, starters or bot credits – all of which you can buy from the store. Fortunately for me, the staff noticed my mistake and credited the discount in CardCaddy, the store’s automated bot online – that will let me get a few cards later!

Another feature the folks at MTGO Traders have is a monthly contest where folks who spend more than $50 (unfortunately, that rules out The Thrifty Djinn … DOH!) can win a Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Ipod Touch or a $400 mtgotraders.com gift certificate. So if you’re the kind of person who is going to make one big splash in cards, and you want to get that extra lotto feeling from your purchase – MTGO Traders might be the place for you. All-in-all, these are a great bunch of folks to shop with – and I sincerely hope they get past the v3 blues and back at full capacity soon.

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

Okay, so there you have it. The first Thrifty Djinn store shopping spree and store review. I think each of the stores has a lot to offer the MTGO community, and as a whole they provide a valuable service to budget players everywhere. I’d recommend any of the sites to anyone looking to make a purchase in MTGO cards – the prices here are universally better than eBay, and short of buying packs and such from the online store – offer the best bang for the buck to the budget MTGO player.

Unfortunately for The Thrifty Djinn, this economic exercise has sploinked my initial start-up budget, and the first $15 monthly stipend. Fortunately, I have a lot of cards to play with with my money – and the next month is just a few short weeks away. This won’t be the last store review for The Thrifty Djinn – and I look forward to seeing how these stores and others fare in future visits.

Later,

Don!

Ready to hit the stores!

Okay, so I've been poking around the last few days trying how to figure out what I'm going to buy from the stores.

The first thing to decide is what stores I'm going to use in my search. A lot of the online stores overlap and share similar features, and some of the stores themselves use the same actual sellers in game. Those stores are more like middle men who just facilitate various trades for a fee, and consolidate billing.

Since this was an initial effort -- I let Google do most of the work for me. Based on a Google search of MTGO card sales, I'm using these four sites for my first venture into MTGO sale stores. When it's all said and done -- I'll rate each site on how well they met my needs as a budget buyer. I've added the links to each of the sites below.

1 . MTGO Traders

2. Cardshark

3. Cardhoarder

4. ABU Games

What will I be buying? Well, I'm not letting the cat out of the bag just yet -- but my emphasis will be on improving the pseudo-tribal decks I enjoy playing in the Casual Room. Mostly Angels, Dragons and Merfolk. I'll also be looking at some staple cards that can go in almost any deck of a given color -- but I'd wager my first buy will be mostly Blue, White and Red.

The final buy list will contain at least 20 cards that I can reasonably expect to buy for around $10. My final decision will be based primarily on lowest costs, but I will also factor in availability and ease of service into the equation. Of course, any special offers will make a difference as well -- so I'll be keeping an eye out for advertised discounts along the way!

I plan to make my purchases between tomorrow evening and the weekend -- so look out Monday for The Thrifty Djinn's first store rating extravaganza!

Later,

Don!


P.S. There's a lot of discussion over on the MTGO General Boards about the possibility of 'free' tourneys and such. I'll make a post on that as soon as the details become more concrete -- but keep your eye out for some new promotions for getting people to play more MTGO.