Hey there! I’m new to paper MTG and play Commander with my playgroup. We’ve been having a debate about whether the total value of a deck really indicates how strong it is. One of my friends argues that value doesn’t equal strength, but I can’t help but wonder when I keep losing to a deck with a higher price tag than mine.
I’ve been playing 1v1 games with my friend for a few months now, so I know their deck almost as well as mine. It can be frustrating when I can predict their moves but still can’t win with my basic deck. I understand the point that a couple of expensive cards in a deck won’t guarantee a win, but when a deck is upgraded with so many pricey cards, it feels like a whole different ball game.
For reference, we both started with precons, and both upgraded. I spent $20, they spent $120+. Inputing my deck list in a deck value calculator returns $103, which is lower than their upgrade alone lol
I don’t mind losing when the match is good. I hate losing when I’m always on the backfoot and can’t do much besides hoping to survive another turn
What are your thoughts on this? I’d love to hear different perspectives on the relationship between deck value and strength in the game.
edit: I received more responses than I expected, so I’ll need some time to go through them all and respond. Thank you in advance!
Here are a few different resources:
They’re all loosely similar and contain the same info. Understand what they’re trying to explain and you’ll be able to better evaluate your decks.
Money alone is a bad measure because it misses what the money is spent on. I have a precon that’s 3 or 4x base cost because I have some expensive basic lands in the deck. I could spend a ton of money and put a bunch of cash expensive Eldrazi in a deck but still get stomped before I can build a decent board state because everything is so mana expensive. It’s where the money goes that matters.
Additionally, you should really consider whether or not a 1v1 is a fair test of your deck. I have some solid upgraded precons that work really well in a pod and shit the bed in a duel. Precons are often geared toward at least 3 player play so if you’re improving the deck, you might be leaning into that. Some decks I play against do much better in duels than pod play. Some are great in both. And sometimes you just don’t have the heart of the cards no matter your deck.
I really appreciate your response!
Money alone is a bad measure because it misses what the money is spent on.
It seems like you all have the same concern regarding my “price = power” statement, and that’s my fault since I haven’t specified it. Yes, spending a lot on better lands, foils, and full-arts doesn’t necessarily translate to more combat power in the game. In my case, I invested a bit in upgrading my lands to improve mana fixing, while my friend didn’t feel the need to do the same since their deck already had multiple ways to fix and ramp mana!
We both have decks that are heavy on creatures, so both upgrades went in that direction with some sorceries and instants thrown in to enhance the precons. Neither of us spent to min-max mana.
I used that power level calculator tool, which rated both precons as a 5. Surprisingly, my upgraded deck scored higher at 6, while theirs dropped to a 4. It makes me wonder if there are some limitations to how the tool scores decks, especially since our matches used to be more balanced before the upgrades, and now I find myself constantly getting crushed consistently lol
Additionally, you should really consider whether or not a 1v1 is a fair test of your deck
I think you might be onto something there! Keeping up with their deck is definitely a tough challenge, and I mostly find myself reacting to their moves instead of making my own. It did seem to go smoother when there were three of us playing, so perhaps you’re right!
I’m looking forward to checking out the other links you shared! It took me a bit longer than I thought to go through the deck lists and apply the upgrades manually, but thank you!
Re: deck lists: there are some really good tools to scan your cards and build the lists from scans. I use ManaBox at the paid tier. I have read that Delver Lens is great on Android. Reading threads, I would stick to these two. If you’re on iOS, ManaBox will be solid. The only thing you need to pay for is more digital boxes to organize things in; I like that because I have a ton of decks, a few binders, a giant dump collection, and I like to track new boxes/bundles/preleases separately as I scan.
No matter the app you choose, you should look for quick scanning and import/export capabilities. It makes stuff like that power level calculator trivial and simplifies sharing and comparing.
Price doesn’t always equal power, but some big pieces are expensive.
First of all, you should look at the cheapest value/printing for a card to really see what the “value” of your deck is. Spending on an older foil card can be vastly more expensive than the reprinted, non-foil version.
Second, it kinda depends on what the money is being spent on. I dropped over $100 the other month just adding a fetchland and a few shocks into a 3-color deck. Spending money on a manabase, or on the staples that hold a deck together, isn’t the same as spending on the big combo pieces that do uniquely powerful things.
As a rule of thumb, I know the price of my deck, but I don’t use it as a thermometer for how high-powered it is. I do use it as an indication of how invested I am in it, since the more I want it to perform, the more money I’ll throw into it.
If price point is an issue with your pod, consider having your powerful pet decks and whatnot, but also setting up a budget deck where the total value of the deck (once again, using cheapest printings) must be below a price point. I’ve seen interesting budget formats where each card must be sub-$1, or Pauper EDH, or where the total value of the deck must be below $25, or $50, or $100. Discussion is the best thing about playing Commander, a social format. Figure out what makes everyone have a good time and roll with that.
You’re totally right about foils and full-arts costing more without necessarily giving a deck an extra edge in combat compared to the regular versions.
Both of our decks rely on dealing creature damage to win, and while I did get some lands (just under $2 for some duals that are better than the bounce lands I had before), they didn’t feel the need to invest in faster lands since their deck has plenty of other ways to fix and ramp mana. So, we both made focused upgrades to our decks, mainly adding creatures, along with some sorceries and instants that complement our commanders.
I checked on Scryfall and calculated the cost of the cards I added to my deck (TCGplayer), and it came out to about $26 for 15 cards. Although one of the cards seems to have gone up in price (+$3) since I bought it, the rest are pretty close in value.
I did the same price check for their upgrades (just the 15 cards I can remember, they might have added a couple more), and it’s sitting at $75. The price difference isn’t as drastic as I thought, so they probably spent more on fancy full-art cards and such.
But hey, I do remember back when we were both playing with stock decks, I used to have a fighting chance and even won more often - maybe not quite half the time, but more than I do now after the upgrades. Today I’ve lost all four matches we’ve played, and only in one I got mana screwed lol Guess I need to step up my game! lol
consider having your powerful pet decks and whatnot, but also setting up a budget deck
I’ll try mentioning this idea, but I have a feeling it might not be well-received. My playgroup is just three of us, after all, and the person I’ve been discussing has two precons - the one we’ve been talking about, and another one that hasn’t been played much (maybe twice in the past six months) because they really loved the precon they upgraded, even stock.
The third person in our group has more decks and they span a wider range of power levels, but we don’t want to leave the other person out…
Myabe I could suggest we play one match using our fully upgraded decks, and then another using more stock ones? I won’t be able to use my favorite deck (the one in this thread), but it could give me a better experience if I’m not constantly getting stomped lol
Thanks for the reply!
Synergy is always going to be more important than how good individual cards are, but the individual cards are expensive because they are popular and are popular because they are good…
You can absolutely build an insanely pricey deck that sucks.
If you want to beat an expensive deck with a cheap deck, you won’t do it by netdecking. Competitive players know which cards are essential in netdecks. “Oh, they’re on esper control, but they don’t have x and y cards? Good, this will be easy.”
My solution to this is to play a deck that no one is expecting. Surprise them. Make them think you’re playing a certain deck for the first 2 turns, then throw out something they’re not expecting.
Now, you can make a crappy deck this way, if you aren’t careful. So playtest and drop the things that don’t work.
I would say that pure monetary value does effect power but with highly diminishing returns and even at the lowest cost the synergy and construction of the deck is more important.
The most expensive card I own is Sheoldred, The Apocalypse - and I always take her out of my decks because she just doesn’t synergise with them. Yeah it’s powerful, yeah it doesn’t weaken my infect deck (for example), but a dirt cheap Blightbelly Rat is far more valuable to me in that deck if I want to do the things my deck is supposed to do, have fun, and have a good chance of winning.
You’re right, and my bad for not mentioning this earlier, but even though we’re new to paper MTG, we’ve had some experience playing on Arena. So, we didn’t end up wasting money on useless cards. We both decided to upgrade our decks with cards that align with the precon theme, making sure to replace weaker or unfitting cards that originally came in the deck!
