Ebay Sellers That Won't Accept Best Offers

In the words of the illustrious Peter Griffin, you know what really grinds my gears? Ebay sellers that put the Best Offer option on their listings but never accept a best offer no matter how little you are actually taking off the asking price.

For example, I recently got into Modern and want to play Burn so I was buying up cards from the competitive deck list. I needed some Inspiring Vantages so I headed over to good ol' Ebay to see what I could find. I like to buy off Ebay more than TCGPlayer because I want to support individual sellers (like myself) rather than some random store across the country and also because I earn Ebay Bucks with every purchase. So I went to Ebay and saw the lowest priced Buy It Now was listed for $4.43 or best offer. I offered $4 for it, 43 CENTS lower than asking price. He declined. Not only did he decline the offer, but he didn't even counter. It wasn't as if he then countered with $4.25 or something. He just looked at the offer and thought to himself "nope" and declined it.

What exactly is the point in putting Best Offer on your listing if you won't even take 43 cents less than asking price? I sell cards on Ebay almost every day and I always try to accept reasonable offers because I don't need to nickel and dime fellow Magic players for literally every penny of possible value. I give them a good deal and my cards sell faster. It's win-win.

This isn't the first time it's happened either. I once saw a card listed for $7.15 and put in an offer of $7.00. The offer got declined. That 15 cents really was going to break his margins apparently. One has to wonder why then he clicked the Best Offer option when creating the listing? Simply to draw in interested buyers who might make offers then begrudgingly settle for full price when they all get declined? C'mon man.

The best part about all this? I then looked on TCGPlayer and there are Inspiring Vantages from Kaladesh in Near Mint condition for $2.99 with free shipping.

So in other words, this Scrooge McDuck just saved me money. Thanks guy!

Ramunap Red Sideboarding Versus the Mirror Super Secret Tech

So after losing several heartbreaking Ramunap Red mirror matches at the PPTQ last weekend I have been mulling over some side boarding plans to help give me an edge. I think I may have come up with some super secret tech that I haven't heard of anybody else running at all. I play tested it yesterday during my LGS's Standard Showdown to good results.

And the card is.....

Board wipes are obviously good at punishing aggressive decks like Ramunap Red but there is a very specific reason that Fiery Cannonade is actually better than the alternative I have seen in a few red sideboards which is Sweltering Suns.

First of all, Fiery Cannonade costs two colorless and a red rather than one colorless and two red, so it is slightly easier to cast when you might have a field full of Sunscorched Deserts and/or Ramunap Ruins and don't want to unnecessarily ping yourself. Unlikely but hey it might happen and every little advantage counts.

The second, and most obvious, reason it is better is that Fiery Cannonade is an Instant while Sweltering Suns is a Sorcery. This allows us to pass the turn, see what the other Ramunap player drops, and then Cannonade after attackers are declared to potentially hit one extra haste creature and get added value. Additionally, assuming it clears their board and they can play nothing else (perhaps from tapping out from playing an Ahn Crop Crasher or something), then on our turn we will be able to reset the tempo by playing the first creature onto the battlefield. This is really strong, especially when you're on the draw and at a huge disadvantage to begin with. Resetting the tempo can negate their choice to go first and as any Ramunap player knows, going first is huge for this deck.

The third reason Cannonade is better than Sweltering is because Cannonade does two damage instead of three. Now you might be thinking to yourself what kind of noob is this guy, he thinks two damage is better! It hits fewer things!

Consider this:

• Turn 1: Soul Scar Mage

• Turn 2: Kari Zev Skyship Raider

• Turn 3: Pass to them. On their turn, play Fiery Cannonade. Prowess triggers on your Soul Scar to buff it to a 2/3, thus he survives. Kari Zev at three toughness survives. 

For the sake of this article lets assume your opponent went Turn 1 Bomat Courier, Turn 2 Earthshaker Khenra, and Turn 3 Ahn Crop Crasher. Now this would normally be a very fast and good opening three turns for Ramunap. Suddenly all three of his creatures die and the two dudes you played both survive.

Obviously this is a best case scenario situation, as maybe he played a Turn 2 Kari Zev which would survive this (but that is also why you wait until attackers are declared so at least you can kill the monkey and avoid the two damage there).

The point is that even though Sweltering Suns would assuredly kill more of your opponents threats, it also kills everything you have played too. It won't actually help you regain any tempo unless you intentionally don't play creatures before using it. Even then, you have to play it on your turn so your opponent gets to play the first creature back onto the battlefield again. Fiery Cannonade might not have those drawbacks. It might kill your opponents threats, while allowing your stuff to survive. That's why it's better. If the scenario I outlined above happened, it would be very, very difficult for your opponent to recover and regain the tempo needed to win the mirror match.

As an added bonus it also is very good against Mono White Vampires!

PPTQ Double Header Weekend and Ramunap Red Mirror

So this weekend I played in two nearby Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifiers. The first was Sealed Deck on Friday. The field was 28 players which is pretty respectable considering the store was small and the entry fee was $35. I wasn't too happy with my pool but I rarely am when it comes to Sealed. I ended up playing a Green/Blue Merfolk/Dinos deck. Red had absolutely nothing. White only had a few playables and black had good removal but no real win conditions.

My 'bombs' were in green in the form of Colossal Dreadmaw, Ripjaw Raptor, River Heralds' Boon and Thundering Spineback. I had some strong blue cards as well including two One With the Wind, Tempest Caller, and some Depths of Desires.

I lost round one to a pirates deck that was just too fast for me. I took round two against a very similar green/blue Merfolk/Dinos deck which also had Jace so I think it may have been better. Round three I also won against Red/White dinos. I then took round four versus mono white vampire tokens. Finally, lost round five against pirates again.

I went 3-2 in the Swiss but my tiebreakers weren't good enough to get into the top 8. The thing is I was 3-1 in the final round and if my opponent had simply drawn with me, we both would have gotten in. He didn't want to though for whatever reason and my dreams got crushed.

Since I was so close to getting top 8 at least I decided to go to another one on Sunday which was about an hour away. This was Standard rather than Sealed and I have been playing Ramunap Red to great success on a weekly basis at the Standard Showdown and FNM. This tournament had 20 players and our weekly Showdowns pull 40-50 so I felt confident going in.

I started off the day well, taking down a Blue/White Second Sun deck. Round two I saw Ramunap Red mirror. Even though I outplayed my opponent greatly throughout the match I still ended up losing because he won the initial die roll. This is a big problem for this deck because the entire match is left up to chance. He won the die roll so he got to play first - which means I lost game one barring some sort of land screw or poor draws on his side (which didn't happen). So I play first in game two - I take it. Then he gets to play first in game three and again he takes that. Even making better decisions still wasn't enough to overcome the tempo advantage.

For example, at one point he had Soul Scar Mage and Aethersphere Harvester. I have Soul Scar Mage and Earthshaker Khenra. I attack with both with three untapped lands. He crews the Harvester with Soul Scar and then blocks my Soul Scar. I Lightning Strike the Harvester before damage. He responds by giving Harvester lifelink. Okay...? So his now 0/2 Harvester has lifelink and dies to my 2/3 Soul Scar. Owned.

Anyway back to reports, round three I played against yet another Second Sun deck. This is an easy match up for me and I take it quite handily.

Round four I play against God Pharaoh's Gift. I was watching some of this guy's matches early

because I hadn't actually played against this deck yet and I thought it would give me trouble. I was correct. I literally couldn't do anything.  I saw zero Abrades in the matchup despite running four.  Game one he had Gift on board on turn three or four and was already pulling Angel of Inventions out with it. Nothing I can really do there. Then game two He Hostage Taker'd one of my Ahn Crop Crashers and then cast it against me. He also hit me with three Fatal Pushes in game two so I couldn't keep anything on board to hit him with. I 0-2'd and he said "normally I lose right away to Ramunap I don't know what happened." Yeah ok.

Game five I needed to win in order to top 8. My breakers were good this time around so 3-2 would get me in. It ended up being another mirror match. We roll and he wins the roll. Like before, this means he takes game one. Just too fast. I go first game in game two and I win it. Game three he goes first, and wins it again. Same as before, like clockwork.  It's actually quite stupid that this game literally boils down to just a chance die roll. I'm going to have to look at sideboarding more against mirror because it was ridiculous. Currently my board looks like this:

2 Chandra's Defeat
2 Aethersphere Harvester
2 Glorybringer
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Harsh Mentor (for energy decks of which I saw ZERO)
3 Rampaging Ferocidon

I am currently thinking of taking Pia out of the main and putting Rampaging Ferocidon in the main, then replacing him in my sideboard with Sand Stranglers and maybe adding a third Chandra's Defeat then going down to three Mentors? I don't know.

I ended at 2-3 on the day with a side of salt. There's another standard PPTQ in my hometown this Saturday I am going to go to as well. Hopefully I can at least top 8 it.