Rotation and You [Article]
Challenges and Articles forum
Posted on July 16, 2014, 12:47 p.m. by Servo_Token
Hey guys!
So this is my first article. Please be gentile. Posting this in the forums just to get it out there, I'm still working on moving it up to the actual articles section, so just bear with me. This article is not intended to be part of a series.
Its summertime. Spoilers for the upcoming core set are in full swing, with the prerelease just behind us. Most importantly, theres one thing on everyones mind: Rotation. Yes, that great time of the year when Standard swaps over legalities, and we wave goodbye to our good friends in RTR block and M14.
The first thing that we need to know about Rotation is the actual date. Khans of Tarkirs release date, September 26, 2014, marks our day. Today (July 16th), is exactly 72 days from that mark. Thats just shy of 3 months to play with our new M15 cards in the current standard. To put this into perspective, this is 10 more FNMs, 9 more Star City Games Opens, and 3-4 more GPs. Now, Im no math expert, but thats still quite a lot of Magic to be had. This is exactly the reason that this article is being written; we have time.
So much around this time of year, I see the phrase Post-rotation. This refers commonly to a deck / archetype that will still be playable on September 27th. People are worrying about how their cards will function with the loss of last years sets. Now, dont get me wrong, this is definitely something to worry about, but most of this worry is completely unnecessary - wasted on building a deck that will turn out to be completely unplayable in the coming months. Im here to tell you right now that there is absolutely no need to be worried about rotation, especially to the severity that you probably are right now. Rotation is your friend. It brings new space for innovation, along with a slew of 269 new cards that well get to have fun with. Most importantly, however, is that it brings a couple of weeks where everyone is saying the same thing: What the heck do I do now?
I get it. This is your first competitive rotation. You spent a lot of money on Return to Ravnica, whether it was in boxes, drafts, or just buying singles. You dont want to feel like youre losing out on all of the time and money that you invested into the block. You feel like you need to justify your $150 purchase of a playset of Mutavault s. And thats totally ok! Theres nothing wrong with any of what I just mentioned. However, I do feel that there is something wrong with overcompensating by being too worried. Here are some tips that will help you make it through rotation alive. I would like to preface this with that this article is written with the typical FNM playing normal-guy in mind. PTQ Grinders, and other people that try to play professionally; most of this does not apply to you. This is more coming from a financial perspective than anything, so if this does not apply to you, feel free to stop here.
Get out early: This is the single most important piece of advice that you will receive on this topic. If you want to feel like your financial investment was worth something, then you need to get back some of what you put in. This means that you should be buylisting your standard-only playables. Blood Baron of Vizkopa , Desecration Demon , Jace, Architect of Thought , Garruk, Caller of Beasts , these types of big, bulky, non-modern cards need to go. Now, if you still have a couple of these cards and want to make your investment back a bit, youve already missed the ship on a couple of them. Jace, in specific, set sail a long time ago. But take this as a lesson - next year, you will know to follow financial trends on hot cards if you want to make your money back. Sometimes being financially sound means making some sacrifices like not playing Mono Black Devotion anymore, and selling your deck when its worth $400. At the beginning of every standard season, you need to make a decision; are you going to be a grinder, or are you going to be safe in your investments? If you are choosing to be a grinder, then by all means keep your cards for the duration of their time in standard. However, if you want to be safe in your investments, you need to sell early and often. These are, in essence, the only choices that you have when it comes to being good at magic. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Now, dont get me wrong here, Im not saying that you need to just stop playing Magic and stick to strictly buying and selling. The time to sell starts right about the time the third set in the block comes out, and ends right about the time of the core set prerelease. So starting at the release of the next block expansion, youve got about 3/4 of a year to play with your cards. Now, if youre really good with your money, youll be practicing a method of selling into hype and buying things when theyre cheap all year long, but if you want to just play for that safe period, feel free to go that route as well.
Utilize non-rotating staples: This parts a bit tricky, because sometimes these cards dont reveal themselves until its too late, but if you can figure out that you should build a deck with Deathrite Shaman , Abrupt Decay , Courser of Kruphix , and cheap cards that you dont care about selling to bulk, then youre way ahead of the curve. By sticking to things that will retain their value after rotation, you instantly cut your worries by a huge percentage. Find the good cards in a set, and play with them through the block. Mono Blue Devotion was a good example of this; it is an extremely powerful deck whose main cards (Thassa / Master of waves) were non-rotating. The rest of the deck didnt really matter at all when talking finances. Players who chose to play this strategy this year were in a very fortunate circumstance. They get to keep their good cards for a whole two years, and the only worry for rotation that they had is what to do with their Nightveil Specter s around this time (hint, see the first piece of advice in this article).
Play Budget: Right about now, youre probably thinking Well I just got rid of my whole Mono Black devotion list! What am I supposed to play now?, and this is a great question. If you are just the typical FNM player, then there is no reason that you cannot get away with playing a budgeted deck that doesnt utilize expensive rares or rotating strategies. Use this three months of summertime to play with the 1500 or so non-expensive cards that are standard legal. Try out that Minotaurs build! Maybe Maze's End Fog is really good right now! The possibilities are endless! Use this time that you have access to the highest amount of possibilities to your advantage and get a little creative! By using these three or so months to have fun and be creative with the game, you are making your overall play experience all the more rich and satisfying (do note that this refers to the average player. If, after trying things out, you dont like this method, feel free to pass on it).
Finally, Dont Worry about post-rotation! This is by and large the biggest pet-peeve of most Magic communities; every other thread, blog, and deck asking Whats it going to be like post-rotation?. Heres the short answer: We have no idea! During this time, right now, we have access to roughly 66% of the cards that will be around post-rotation. We have 0% knowledge of the upcoming set. This means that it is literally impossible to know what will be popular, who will do the best, what the next big money card is, etc, etc, etc. If youre one of those guys that likes to speculate, please feel free to speculate. There is nothing wrong in that. But if you are about to click Post on that thread asking what archetype you should play after rotation, please stop, get up from your computer, and head down to your local game store instead. We do not know. We can not know. The best way to get this information for certain is to have your shops Magic guy tell you this to your face. Please, for the love of God and all that is Holy, do not ask us this sort of question, and just refer to the top portions of this guide.
Alright guys, thats it for my first article, hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think in the comments! And while youre down there, feel free to share some of your experiences with rotation!
Nice article. I would just like to second the "we don't know what will happen post rotation" part. It's really not worth worrying about it now. If you have expensive rotating cards that you can't afford to lose money on, you should ship them ASAP. But trying to build a "rotation-proof" deck is just a waste of time and energy at this point.
July 16, 2014 1:01 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #4
But I'm one of G-d's chosen, I can't be gentile.
Ok now that i got that out of my system i will go back and read the article.
July 16, 2014 1:02 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #5
That's hilarious. And as it turns out, Canadians don't know how to teach their kids how to spell Gentle...
July 16, 2014 1:06 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #6
thank you :P
I personally feel that as an article this would do better to drop the bits about this specific rotation and just stick to the basics of surviving a rotation, what rotates each year (previous block and the associated coreset), and general timeframe of rotation. Other than that great article.
July 16, 2014 1:13 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #7
While I agree that a specified style of writing isn't good for the long term, I would argue that neither is referring back to the same generic piece every year (should that be what people do, of course). I'd rather write up a new piece that is similar, yet specified to that specific rotation because it helps connect to the reader more and drive the point home.
Glad you guys liked it though, that really takes a lot of anticipation off my chest. :P
July 16, 2014 1:21 p.m.
I actually disagree. I think using specific cards in this rotation is nice to illustrate the points. And realistically, not many people are gunna be breaking out this article a year from now to talk about that next rotation.
July 16, 2014 1:22 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #9
Articles can be re-featured by management next year when rotation time comes around again if it is written in general terms is my thought. The examples could be reworded in such a way that specific cards could still be used but is about "rotation" not "September 27, 2014 rotation". As an example:
Desecration Demon
, while a powerhouse in RTR/THS Standard, does not have the Modern or eternal staying power that made Griselbrand
a card you could hold onto right up to rotation of INS/RTR Standard. As such to better protect your investment this type of Standard only playable should be sold off early.
July 16, 2014 1:44 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #10
So much yes to this while article
On a side note, I'm glad I only play standard with proxies... And I'm even more glad that EDH/Commander doesn't rotate.
July 16, 2014 2:11 p.m.
This is a pretty good article, I enjoyed it. It's easy to read and I could see it being especially helpful to the newer players freaking out about rotation in a couple months.
July 16, 2014 3:25 p.m.
MindAblaze says... #12
Very nice, and I agree whole-heartedly. It makes me think that people building "post-rotation" are "netdeckers" who want to avoid buying high and selling low. It's all speculation anyway, people like anticipation.
July 16, 2014 3:41 p.m.
Another good tip in preparing for rotation is what to trade away your cards like Desecration Demon
for. You talked a little bit about holding onto staples that see eternal play, but another good tip is the land for that sticks around for the next set. This means scry lands in this case, but if you can find anyone who will trade away shocks at a discounted rate jump on that. No one really knows how much play scrys will see, depends on how fast the meta is, but it'll be a huge shock of they don't see any play.
July 16, 2014 3:58 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #14
I had the intent to, based on the reception of this one, write a follow up on how to trade around this time, and that is one of the main points that I was going to be making - trading into lands. That's probably the most important thing that someone who is looking to acquire cards to play with via trading can do is secure their landbase before making a deck.
July 16, 2014 4:01 p.m.
Lovely article good sir :3
I for one can say that I am not worried about rotation. I will play my RtR Block deck at FNM al the way till rotation! I dont give two craps!
But in all seriousness, as much as I love to prepare for rotation by brewing up decks that will be post rotation legal, I feel that we should let M14 and M15 enjoy their time together, and that we should enjoy the time that 8 different sets are in standard at the same time!
Again, very nice article ThatBlueMage! I look forward to reading more of them! Thanks for writing this (or I guess typing it) and happy deckbuilding!
July 17, 2014 11:31 p.m.
assassin54853 says... #16
Thanks a ton man! This helped me out sooooooooo much! :D
mathimus55 says... #2
Yes. Very yes. To all this
July 16, 2014 1 p.m.