This series is an ongoing tribute to Erik “Hamtastic” Friborg.

Bannings!: Wizards has updated the Banned and Restricted list, and there are some changes. Details and rational here. Standard is unchanged, but Modern has been shaken, not stirred. Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song are both banned. That kills (or at least significantly neuters) two of the decks I have been playing most often, Jund and Storm. Eliminating them will open up the format.

 

Of special interest to MTGO players, the B&R list for Pauper also expanded a bit. Wizards banned three cards: Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, and Invigorate are gone. That kills a couple of the really fast, really annoying archetypes, and should mean the format revolves around Mono-blue control, combo snap and the Hexproof Auras decks – although maybe zoo or goblins can make a comeback.     

 

The bannings will go into effect on MTGO after the February 6^th downtime.  

How Many Force of Wills?:  The MOCS preliminaries are over. 839 players entered the four events. Presumably, an unknown additional number of Force of Wills were awarded to people who had 15 or more points, but did not play in a qualifier, plus the FoWs given out to high finishers. I would estimate between 1,500 and 2,000 Force of Wills entered the system as a result of the MOCs.  That should push the price of FoW down, at least a bit. 

Wizards to Host Walk-through of New Client: Worth Wolpert, Ryan Spain and Chris Kiritz will have hosted a webinar on the new client. They will have streamed the walk-through, and should have taken questions. A recording of the event should be available on the Wizards Twitch TV channel. (It is really awkward to write about an event that is in the future was I write this, but will have happened by the time the article is posted.) Whatever: details are here.  

Huge Update to New Client: A big part of this downtime was an update to the client that supposedly fixed a large number of bugs. These appear to be general fixes, and not the trade and chat upgrade we have been promised. Hopefully, that is not far off.

 

Gatecrash Prerelease and Release Event Coming Next Week:  The online Gatecrash prerelease events start February 8^th at 10:00am PDT. The prereleases will be the same as the RtR prereleases: you choose your guild and get 5 normal Gatecrash boosters plus one guild specific booster. Details here.

MTGO Cube is Here: As Wizards promised, during the slack time between the paper prerelease and the Gatecrash online prerelease, we will be drafting the MTGO Cube. The cube is not powered this time around – it reverts to the build used at the Community Cup Championship last year. Details here. 

 

HammyBot: Still here! HammyBot was created to sell the late Erik Friborg’s MTGO collection to raise money for his widow and son. HammyBot is a great way to get cards while supporting the family of someone who supported the community. Here’s an update on the Bot, plus a note on a cool card that I saw on HammyBot.  Note that we have broken the $5k barrier.  Onward and upward!

 

            Cards left on HammyBot: 28,044

TIX raised so far:  5,064

            Cool HammyBot card of the week:  Cascade Bluffs

 

Modern is a thing, and is going to continue to be a thing.  The lands will always be valuable.  The first set to own are the shocklands, of course, followed by the fetchlands.  After that, if you want to play color intensive decks, get the filter lands from Lorwyn block.  Hammiebot has most of them, at reasonable prices.

Each week I intend to record a video of me doing something using the beta interface. This week, though, I am skipping it this week. My lag problems are apparently not typical, and I have been working with Wizards to try and figure out the problem. Until we do, I don’t want to give the new interface a undeservedly bad rap.

 

Standard: With a bit over a week to go before everything changes, I’m not going to waste time on old Standard. It is still amazingly diverse, but it’s time to brew new decks. 

 

Return to Ravnica Block Constructed: Gatecrash is here, in paper at least. I’m going to hold off until it appears. RtR only decks are old news.

 

Pauper: With the bannings, the format may change a bit. Some things will remain the same.  This deck – a Cloudpost based control build – will still be here when Empty the Warrens is gone. 

 

 

Modern: With the bannings, Modern will change a bit. If you want to play Jund, play it – Bloodbraid Elf is replaceable, with a number of cards that are only slight downgrades. If you would rather play combo, try this. Just remember to change the Grapeshot in the sideboard to another secondary win condition. There are plenty – even Laboratory Maniac has done well as a kill condition in this deck.    

 

 

Legacy: The MOCs preliminaries were last weekend. A number of interesting archetypes were displayed, but this one went 6-0 in the hands of a couple different players.   RUG Delver has been a thing in Legacy for a while, and if you are looking to use those new Force of Wills, this is a good option.

 

 

Classic: No Classic events fired this week. On the plus side, Round Three of the Classic Quarter Invitational will start soon. Details when they are available. 

Notes: All my prices come from MTGOTraders.com. For cards that are available in multiple sets, I am quoting the most recent set’s price. Thus, the price I’m quoting for Garruk Relentless is from M13. These cards are also available from the MTGOTraders Bots,  so check out mtgotradersbot, mtgotradersbot2,mtgotradersbot3, mtgotradersbot4, mtgotradersbot5, CardCaddy and CardWareHouse. These Bots often have the cards in stock even when the online store shows as out. Now, on to prices.

 

Standard prices are adjusting as people start brewing decks with Gatecrash. I have also fixed Restoration Angel – as one astute reader noted, I had started pulling the price for the promo version. I am using the price for the regular version now. 

Standard & Block Cards	Price	Last Week	Change	% Change
Liliana of the Veil	$32.47	$29.16	$3.31	11%
Liliana of the Dark Realms	$8.82	$8.82	$0.00	0%
Entreat the Angels	$8.45	$8.88	($0.43)	-5%
Geist of Saint Traft	$38.15	$33.44	$4.71	14%
Cavern of Souls	$9.81	$10.15	($0.34)	-3%
Bonfire of the Damned	$34.07	$31.75	$2.32	7%
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage