Intro

In my last post, I stated that I was going to skip buying packs and outlined the reasons why. TLDR: packs are likely to be negative expected value very quickly.

In this post, I'll let you know which cards I've been picking up on the cheap.

Anubians

I started off by fleshing out my anubian deck picking up:

The rares were ~$1 each and the commons were between $.10 and $.20. I didn't buy land of the dead because it was (and still is) $5 each. Instead, I tested out the anubians, and found them to be a lot less effective than before. True, my PTR deck had the legendaries and LotD, but the nerf to Wretched Guard was pretty drastic. I decided to hold off on buying anything else for the deck.

Magic

There are a bunch of magic cards for pennies.

There really is no rush to pick up commons, but I picked up a few cards that looked like they could fit into decks I already played or that might be fun for memes (rats!).

Light

Super cheap cards. Humble Benefactor is a great card and immediately goes into aggro light decks. The others aren't as good, but are interesting. Take this one:

This is the devs figuring out how to give a balanced shield bearer. For 4 mana you get 4/4 worth of stats and the 3 cost of the first card ensures that it isn't oppressive for opening hands. It's clearly not as good as shield bearer, but it also has extra flexibility given the echo. You aren't going to run out of cards as quickly.

Deception

I wanted to add a little strength steal into my aggro decks, and these cards are pretty fantastic. Bound by Her Will is not quite as good as I had hoped, though. How many 1 str creatures do you really want for 3 mana? The main benefit appears to be bringing frontliners over to your side, but there aren't many opportunities for that right now.

Nature

Not much. Just picked up some of the new amazons. Grabbed a missing core amazon, too. I've been having fun with the deck. I think early decks aren't recognizing hopeful druid or really the power of echo in amazon decks in general. You want that board full and you don't want to run out of cards. Hopeful Druid helps with that and the effect is decent. I need more testing with it.

War's Wake is definitely a great card and a pretty cheap common (currently $.15). I just haven't tried a regen deck because it depends on the expensive legendaries. With that said, War's Wake is pretty good all by itself:

You get 6 stats spread across 2 creatures (each regen 1 at the end of the first turn). Neither are confused. Compare that to the 3/3 Black Jag that is confused. They are both pretty strong, but wildfire and other board buffs might mean Wake is slightly better. I may pick them up yet, I just haven't been playing wild nature much. They are commons - you'll win plenty of them.

War

The Vanguard and Adherent are really solid cards. I've been meaning to play with them, but just haven't gotten to it yet. I want to brush off my old enrage decks and see what happens. Maybe in the coming days.

Conclusion

Clearly, I'm in no rush to buy pricey cards. I learned my lesson with Divine Order: there is little point in chasing the flavor of the week. There will be countless balance patches, and ultimately, you're competing in a weekend event to earn ever more of the very same cards. They will all be trending down over time. Looked at D.O. leggies lately? There are only 6 cards above $10. Yea, I'm not stressing weekend ranked anymore.