It isn't something you should be trying hard to do, but if you are playing an aggro red deck and are running low on playables it's just something to consider as you should be able to pick up both fairly late. The wings were decent with my green creatures too, so I'm not sure they're necessarily unplayable, especially since green, red, and black do not have many permanents that can deal with fliers in this set (though there is an abundance of removal spells). They're not fantastic, but I'd have to try them a couple more times before I were ready to write them off as unplayable. They also make it so the Neonates aren't always just terrible from turn 3 on.

I agree neither card is great and there are plenty of things you should be picking over them even late. I was just pointing out that if you do have to use some mediocre cards, those two work well together.

you are correct - no damage is dealt to opponent means the trigger is not activated

would be the same if it was prevented in some other way too

I played one in my GR prerelease deck. Granted, my deck had 2 kindercatch and other various ground pounding guys. Was vv good in that deck obviously.

I sided it out one game because my opponent had 2 of the 4/4 artifact that deals 4 damage to a creature with flying when it comes into play.

Anyone else think Snapcaster mage will hit ~$12-14 in the coming months?

I'd be extremely surprised if it stabilized at $15+ and wouldn't be shocked if it hit $10 at some point. I don't think its going to be played in mass quantities in any format. Inkmoth Nexus isn't as flashy, but there are so many more copies in decks out there and its only $9.

I think it will go down a bit as most decks won't run a full set, unless something like UG tempo emerges. That said, it is playable in all formats so I think it will start to rise again as other formats pick it up, and will continue to do so for a while.

On a related note, Skaab Ruinator will also go way down I suspect.

Snapcaster mage will go down because:

A) It's a rare. Not a mythic.
B) It's in the first set. Tons of Innistrad will be cracked
C) Not every deck wants him (and IMO, the solar flare decks that have him are bad versions).

But don't think it will come down anytime before states.

it'll see enough play in legacy/modern to keep it at 15-20, and the foils will stay very high like 80+

yeah I think 15 is a reasonable bar to set

What's the deal with the solar flare decks? Their mana bases look hilariously atrocious.

My roommate has been testing one for the past week with me and the mana base seems fine. The only thing it seems to have trouble with is landing a turn 3 Liliana, but he often doesn't want to do that anyway. The lands that come into play tapped aren't a big deal as the deck is pretty sluggish anyway. That's also its biggest problem; the aggro decks we've been putting up against it (RDW, tempered steel, humans, and even mono black aggro) are so fast that it can't really handle the rush. If he doesn't start with any of the removal and I go first I can often swing for lethal before he can wrath, even while playing around it. If it can stabilize it can get a pretty solid lock, but that's tough to do when the aggro player is routinely swinging for 8 on turn 3 and 12+ on turn 4.

Anybody know where the original Solar Flare deck got its name?

If its ever as much of a legacy/vintage staple as people seem to think then the foils are probably as low as they will ever be.

I could have bought 3-4 at $60 each different places online, but I seriously doubt snapcaster mage in legacy.

How much money does it take to start out and actually have fun, pc version? I downloaded the 2012 planeswalkers xbox version, and it's really a joke, you just pick from 10 preset decks, and half of them are much better than the others.... lol. Can I structure a good deck and compete with say $50-$100?

With that budget you can play pauper which is the all commons format. To get started check out some decklists here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...y/activity/809

fwiw i bought red deck wins yesterday for type two with some 1-2 nl winnings on the cheap. i DID end up spending 120 dollars tho. but its a pimped rdw list that can win type two doesnt cost 500 dollars.

pauper can be surprisingly expensive the frantic storm deck was full of $2-3 commons(not sure if it's still a deck with frantic banned)

I played pauper affinity for a bit and even that cost ~$30 at the time.

"Leagues – We are still evaluating several potential development dates for leagues. The final date will be determined by the overall needs of the business team, but we expect development would begin no later than Q3 of 2012"

F*** you Wizards - I want a time machine to go back to 2008.

You should be able to make a Humans type 2 deck for under $100. I don't think it will quite wind up being a tier 1 deck (the format just rotated last week so the metagame hasn't been fully established yet) but it will probably be tier 2 and pretty competative. I would have said Red Deck Wins would be cheap a week ago but it has been doing very well in the new format tournaments that have happened since the rotation and as a result Stromkirk Noble prices have gone way up, which is a must have in the deck, so it will probably be a little more than $100, especially since Koth is pretty pricey.

Ya when you think about a format called pauper you think its a place for all those players who buy a few starter packs to get together to play a bunch of crappy decks together. Turns out its full of ridiculous combo and control decks that the average "poor" player will have a difficulty acquiring the cards for. It would be cool if they had a T2 pauper format, then it would be guaranteed you would have to pay more than .25 for any individual card and you could play a bunch of mediocre decks. That at least seems like it would be more in the spirit of what a pauper format should be.

There are a few weekly series of player run events for standard pauper. pdcmagic.com should have the info.

Commander is also a place to start out that won't take a ton of money, and is pretty casual online. The precons are good enough and often better than what people bring in there (lol 7cc+ commanders). The downsides are that games take awhile (these players aren't the best with the interface) and there are less commander games than other formats.

I love pauper, but it's stupidly competitive. Too much so to recommend to a newer player online.

did that free drafting group ever start up? id like to get in on it. my mtgo addiction is crippling me!

I would also be up for the free drafting group if it got together. How does it work?

You use a program like netdraft to do the draft. For matches you use magic workstation. I used to do this a long time ago. A simple hash provided by netdraft prevents cheating too, if you draft with randoms.

During what time periods did leagues actually run?

I remember this being a problem even way back in the history of MTGO. People really liked the leagues, but they have seldom been available.

Unless I recall incorrectly if leagues were around in 2008 then cut off it wasn't the first time this happened. I remember there being leagues ~8-10 years ago then they got cut off.