THE INVENTORY BUILD

I’ve decided that I was going to inventory my collection onto the computer just because I have an OCD thing about it and I want to keep track of my cards a little better. I would do excel spreadsheet with them but I haven’t done a spreadsheet since jr high school, plus they are a pain for me to figure out how to use (plus I don’t even have excel on my computer, I think). If anyone wants to help then be my guest.

My original idea for me to do this is because of the Google + community full of Magic the Gathering players. The community is very helpful in helping other people without being a troll or a goblin about it (except for a certain person that can’t be named). I’m still kind of shaky with the idea of doing this because I’m afraid the outcome wouldn’t be good. In fact I almost scrapped the idea entirely and just do an inventory for myself. There was a part of me that wants to just go through with it and see what happens.

For my idea of even doing the inventory is to let the community help me build a deck (standard of course) that I can use for FNM or open trials. All the credits will go to whoever helps build the deck. I will put some input in it as well, not going to be one of those guys that make the other people do their work for them. I had a couple of positive feedback about it when I posted the idea, so hopefully it will still work out like I hope.

I will post the list in google doc for my inventory, because that seems to be the best way for everyone to see the list without it messing up the format. I am also open for trades on a lot the cards listed as well, just ask me and we will go from there. I have a wish list on deckbox.org of what I’m looking for as well. Worst thing that could happen is me saying no.

CLICK HERE to see the list. Let me know in the comments or you can email me by going onto my Google + <--click that and look at my about tab to find the email there. If it gets to argumentive between people, I’m going to put a stop to it.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Is this a good idea or a bad idea? Let me know In the comments.

EXCITEMENT…FOR NOTHING…

Ever do a booster draft or just buy booster packs and get excited about certain cards that you got in the booster pack? Ever find out that certain card you got excited about you already had multiple of? Not that it happened to me, but it happened to me last week.

Now you feel weird for getting excited about those cards you’ve gotten, as long as no one else knows and maybe you can come up with a story behind it which is somewhat true but not really, should anyone find out.

When you have a vast collection like most magic players do (if not all of them), you tend to forget some of the cards you have already in your collection. It happens to me all the time. It probably happens to other players too that has been playing since it came out in ’93 or recent years. Best thing to do is either sell off the many multiple you have or trade them for other cards you could really use in vintage, legacy, modern, EDH, or standard.

It’s a weird moment when you open your box of magic cards and (I don’t know if anyone else does this) go to where the manna cost order you need to put the card in, and find 4 or 5 or even 11 of the same card that you somehow forgot you have, simply because you have multiple decks with the same card and have no use for the ones sitting in your box. Like I said before, not that it happened to me, but it happened to me last week.

What’s the one card you got excited about and forgot you have multiple copies of the same card?

Please leave a comment and thanks for reading my blog.

TRADING FAITH

          Trading is a topic I have talked about before, but this one is different. Since the EXTRA!.....EXTRA! Blog has been posted I’ve been trading with other players, through pucatrade.com and the wonderful people at the Magic the gathering community board on Google +.

          Normally I don’t trade with other players other than my brother in law, just because I fear I might get ripped off, but I gave it a try. It’s mostly form the website and the community right now, still hasn’t done it at my LGS.  The players at my LGS seem friendly enough but looks are deceiving. 

          I’ve gotten a Planeswalker and some sliver cards so far, and few more still coming in the mail. The sliver cards I got from the person who sent it to me had put some extra sliver cards in the envelope  with the one I was asking for (in protective hard card sleeve of course). Found out from someone else about that it is pretty much normal for someone to do that, which I think is a really cool thing to do.

          This tells me that the magic communities are full of great people. It really opened me up some more to the idea of trading with other players in person. Thanks MTG Google+ community and pucatrade.com for opening me up some more to start getting rid of the extras or card I have no use for to other people who needs the cards more than me.

          How often do you trade? Do you trade by the need of the card or the value of the card?

          Thanks for reading my blog, please comment your thoughts.

If you are interested in my trade and want list I will post a link for it.

Card trade list ß----link

LANDS OF CONFUSION

      If you were anything like me when playing magic the gathering where you get mana screwed, then I know how you feel. You can build your deck and think it will be awesome to use and come to find two mana on the battlefield with the opposite color mana cost creatures and spells in your hand. Nothing can be more annoying than having that happen, well except for having to hear the gundam style song and seeing the dance constantly, and the opponent showing no mercy and destroys you in a few amount of turns.

     I decided to do some internet search on how to not get mana screwed, after a few dozen websites or so, I finally found it. It’s called the land formula. It seems pretty interesting to read and of course I had to read it a few times because I got easily confused on what it was telling me I should do. I realized there’s math involved, which anyone who knows me personally would think “oh crap”, yea true story. But I understood it a little better when I tried out the math problems on paper.

     I am going to use my Minotaur’s sword deck to use as an example for this formula.  First you separate the single and the multiple (such as RR) mana cost symbol and separate the color if you are playing more than one color deck. Take those single color mana cost symbol and count them up.

     First up are the red symbol cards:

1x Canyon Minotaur
2x Fanatic of Mogis
2x Minotaur Skullcleaver
2x Deathbellow Raider
1x Furious Resistance
2x Punish the Enemy
1x Thunder Strike
2x Madcap Skills

     There are 13 single red mana symbol in this deck, now let’s count up the multiple mana symbol of  the same color cards.

2x Borderland Minotaur
1x Rageblood Shaman
2x Rakdos Shred-Freak

      There are 5 multiple red symbols. Multiply it by 1.5, and get the total of 7.5. Add it to the already 13 to make it 20.5 to your total.  Let’s count up the black cards.

Black mana symbols:

2x Felhide Minotaur
3x Undead Minotaur
1x Doom Blade
2x Wring Flesh
3x Deviant Glee
1x Mark of the Vampire
2x Quag Sickness
2x Rakdos Shred-Freak

There are 16 single black symbol cards. Now for the multiple black symbol.

3x Minotaur Abomination
1x Hero's Downfall

    There are 4 multiple black symbols in this deck. Multiply the 4 with 1.5 to make it 6. Add that to the already 16 to make it 22 total.  To figure out the ratio you add the 20.5 with the 22 to get 42.5. Take the 42.5 and divide it with 20.5 to get 48.23% of your cards in your deck to produce red mana. Basically everyone wants to (or need to) have at least 24 mana in the deck. Because really any more than that would get you mana flooded unless you’re playing EDH, then it wouldn’t be a problem, right?

    Take the 48.23% and minus it with 24 and the answer will be 11.57. So round that down to make it 11 simply because there’s no way to put in .85 of a land, that can be quite difficult to do. The answer 11 is how much red mana you are going to need in the deck. Now I understand that Rakdos shred-freak is a hybrid red and black card since there are two in the deck you can divided them evenly by putting in 2 red mana and 2 black mana. You can divide the 22 black with the 42.5 and see what you can get out of the total, which is 51.76% and do the minus with the 24 and get 12 as your total. But if you are planning on a 24 land deck, you can figure that part out.

     It seems like when I do the math problem with the black cards, I come up with 23 lands total. So does that mean I add one more creature or spell in? Would that mess up the math I just did? It didn’t really explain that part of it. But they do say that having 20-23 lands are an aggro kind of decks. I will have to research it a little further to see if I can get a better understanding of this land formula. But whatever you do don’t do (as I did) the 20 land, 20 spells, and 20 creatures. It just doesn’t work very well in your favor as a new player to the game.

     As for the colorless lands you feel the need to put in, remember every two nonland source of mana lower the land count by one. But when adding trick colorless lands, add an extra land for every two colorless lands you put in.

Confusing right? Yea something to read into a little bit more.

     I hope that this will help with your mana troubles in a way. I know I might’ve not explained as well as I should, but I’m only writing this as I understood the article I read online. So don’t hate on me about it, which I know some of you might just do.

    What ways do you build you mana base around to make your deck work smoothly? Leave me your answers in the comments.

   Thanks for reading my blog; I hope it didn’t confuse you as much as it did to me.