The Cost of Playing Pot of Extravagance

Playing Perspective

No one can deny how good is. You can draw one or two cards for the mere cost of banishing three or six cards respectively from your Extra Deck. Granted, you will be unable to draw any other cards for the rest of the turn. The card sees play in decks such as Pure Eldlich, Dinosaurs, Subterror, and Altergeist. It makes these decks more consistent by giving the players more options during their turn through that one crucial extra card they get to draw. However, not all decks can run Extravagance since some strategies heavily rely on their Extra Deck such as Dragon Link, Synchro Eldlich, and Salamangreats. Curiously enough, some strategies such as decks can even benefit from Extravagance's activation cost to boost the attack of Gren Maju or gain life points.

Hands down, this is one of the best "draw two" cards printed in the last few years. Unlike with , you do not have to banish ten cards from your deck to activate it. Therefore you do not have to deal with the risk of losing some of your combo pieces or important elements of your deck. So we can conclude that the card is good and doesn't appear to have any real drawbacks except that it can't be played in strategies that need to access a lot of different Extra Deck Monsters, right?

Curiously enough, the answer is both yes and no at the same time. The card is worthy of seeing play in the game's competitive — and even casual — environment as it empowers many different decks. But there are financial implications associated with playing the card, and they go beyond the obvious …

Financial Perspective

The first problem is that before got its first reprint in Toon Chaos, the card was expensive enough to deter some players from using it at all. This led them either to play underpowered decks or to choose other decks to play that do not require Extravagance. Budget players simply were not able to afford the card. Some tried to make do with one or two copies. Now with the reprint finally here, its price dropped to around fifty euros for a copy from Toon Chaos. Some might still opt to splurge on the higher rarity of the card instead — around two hundred euros for the Collectors Rare — as an investment: this version will most likely hold its price better than the Secret Rare and Ultra Rare versions in the face of expectation that further reprints will come. Just look at how Pot of Desires is getting a lot of reprints recently.

While we cannot claim that the price is now within the grasp of all players, many more can now afford to purchase the card and incorporate it into their decks. This should — in theory — bridge the gap between those running the same deck who owned the card previously and those who just managed to procure it. Right? Not exactly … It brings us to the second problem: the hidden costs associated with running Pot of Extravagance in some decks.

Extravagance is associated with decks that that do not rely heavily on the Extra Deck, so most of the cards that would get banished as a cost for you to draw should be irrelevant to a certain extent. Decks such as Monarchs and True Dracos do not generally have Extra Deck plays. For them, Extravagance is a perfect card since whatever you banish will not affect the deck in the slightest manner. What if you are playing Dinosaurs? Then you would need at least two copies of and maybe two copies of one or two more cards. Pretty normal so far, right?

What about a deck such as /Gren Maju? The Extra Deck contains three copies of each of the following cards: , , and . The reason these three cards are played in triplicates is to ensure that you will still have access to at least one of them after banishing for Extravagance's cost in order to take full advantage of . How about Pure Eldlich? In that case you will need between two and three copies of .

Do you notice any trend in these examples? If you are not familiar with the prices of the above Extra Deck Monster cards, just click their links. Take a quick look and I recommend you even check out the prices for the cheaper versions, if they have more than one printing. I am sure you managed to spot it. Prices for these Extra Deck Monsters — without considering the cost of the rest of the Extra Deck — is increasing from one example to another. Have you seen Jack Verma's Altergeist deck which got him a top four spot in the Luxury Championship Series 4? He was playing three copies of , a card priced at about seventy euros.

Affording Extravagance to play certain fun and cheap decks is one thing. But having to afford it to play competitively while also being obligated to buy other cards to make Extravagance less risky in these decks is another thing. Of course, it depends on the deck itself and the choice of Extra Deck Monsters. Not all decks that run Extravagance need expensive monsters; however, you may never know when a certain card would seamlessly fit in there and give you better winning chances. Just remember that at one point, there was a Extravagance Spyral variant running three copies of .

Unfortunately, not everyone can afford multiple copies of expensive cards. Players who are on a tight budget will end up either playing suboptimal lists or switching to other decks that have the closest possible competitive potential but do not require such a hefty investment. My concern is that we might eventually see a general increase in the price of Extra Deck Monsters after a few more Extravagance reprints since players will have more demand for them.

Beware of the hidden costs associated with purchasing Pot of Extravagance and manage your decks and finances responsibly.

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