i too fall into a Football slumber when the season starts usually i am running 4 fantasy football teams so i understand bro. I give mad props to our Clan they bring it when it comes to classic i think we have some of the best playing classic. i think you guys should hit up legacy in the podcast and maybe even a little Modern but that's just me. Great vids as usual bro.
I have been consistently winning the first round of 4-3-2-2 M2012. I rarely win the second round. To have an equivalent payout in Swiss with my record, I'd have to play all three rounds. What a waste of time. I'd much rather play single elimination and start a new draft. Swiss is torture unless you are trying to learn the set.
You have to consider that the shock lands are highly likely to get reprinted in a standard-legal set as rares (in a set which also has mythics) and therefore they are bound to become much, much cheaper.
Also, while true duals are relatively cheap in MTGO (for now at least), that does not go for paper.
The lack of a reserve list is going to matter a lot down the line. You can expect Goyf to appear in some product as well (maybe an FTV), and the same basically applies to any other Modern staples that are pricey and have power level concerns. WotC has already shown they are willing to put tournament staples in products that are not standard legal, and I believe they will soon show us they will do that even with cards that are fetching big bucks in the secondary market - like Tarmogoyf.
Actually you do not have a equal chance of winning and losing the last round in 8-4 or 4-3-2-2.
It comes down to the setup, which is: If atleast one good player is in a match a good player wins it. I suspect that you missed that is was not just vs. you that this was the case...
You are player 1 in his setup. You win round 1 if player 2 is bad (probability 1/2).
You win round 1 and round 2 if player 1, 2 AND 3 are bad (probability 1/8). E.g. if there is a good player out of 2 and 3, a good player would win round 1 out of those two and hence beat you round 2.
You win round 1, 2 and 3 if everybody else are bad (probability 1/128) for the same reason (as in if atleast one of 5, 6, 7 or 8 is good you will meet a good player in the final - since a good player would win round 1 and round 2).
We hence see that if you reach the final you have a probability of 1/16 to win it (you have a probability of 1/16-1/128 to lose it which gives 1/16 to win)...
You can see the calculations in my first (second if you count the deleted one) post.
I agree about the bad math though :/ (not meant as sarcasm - the preceding is about the analysis not the math)
If we are throwing around credentials then I will point out that I am studying for my PhD in algorithmic game theory (aka. modeling stuff like this and then trying to solve it fast using a computer - it has nothing to do with regular computer games though :( ).
*edit* still, the EV of 4-3-2-2 is close to 1,13 in the scenario outline which IS far from 1,5...
I think the evolution of payouts comes from WOTC's awareness of the problem around the perception of strong players preying on weak players and were trying to resolve this issue. I think the move of getting rid of visible ratings was also made to help this problem.
Anecdotally, when the split between 8-4 and 4-3-2-2 occured, I think WOTC thought that the good players would migrate to the higher EV of 8-4 payouts. All things being equal, they should have. But, at that time MTGO wasn't as well attended as today. Combine that with players wanting to play, right now, (a big part of the appeal of MTGO I think) and 8-4 ended up rarely firing. Good players were willing to play with lower EV payouts in order to start a draft right away. Otherwise, they were forced to wait for a draft that might never fire.
To the best of my recollection, originally there were only 8-4 drafts, period. Then they tried to introduce the 1800+ room to separate the 'sharks' from the 'fish', but that didn't work because the 1800 room was rarely populated by anybody really. Then they introduced 4-3-2-2 drafts. Finally Swiss was introduced.
I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure this is the history of draft payouts on MTGO.
no - the odds of winning a given round are not 50/50. In this example, the palyers has a 100% cahnce of winning against a worse player, and a 0% chance of winning against a better player.
The player can only winn the draft if every other player in the draft is a worse player, and the odds of that are 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50%, which equals 0.78%. Not 78%, 0.78%. In other words, the odds of winning the draft are less than 1%.
Yes, Modern staples are insanely high right now, but that's not going to last. I believe there are a lot of playsets of Ravnica duals being held by speculators right now, and as soon as the prices stop rising, there's going to be a rush to get out. This is obviously a bubble. We don't even know if Modern will be a success long term; it is pretty much the same format that Extended would have been pre-change, and that Extended wasn't so popular except during PTQ season. I'm not even convinced that the Ravnica duals are worth it, given the excellent mana fixing available now. Remember that we have Vivid lands, tri-lands, fastlands (my name for the Scars duals), filter lands, etc, etc. Also, there's a good possibility that they will be reprinted, possibly as soon as Innistrad. So I wouldn't get too anxious about the cost of manabases just yet. Unless you're playing in Pro Tour Philly, or are a top player, save your money and wait for prices to fall back to reasonable levels.
Plus, I didn't play MTGO until recently. I want to play Splinter Twin, but Shocklands and Pact of Negations are really high and I don't wanna drop a bunch of money on cards that might plummet in value. I may be able to get away with no Shocklands, but Pacts are pretty necessary for that deck IMO.
How awesome is Firespout right now? (rhetorical)
The amount of playable stuff is disgustingly wide open though. I may do a Modern event too. Both for video and for the promo Lightning Bolt (WIN!).
So the EV for swiss is higher and the "full value" of both swiss and 8-4 is better.
The reason why 4-3-2-2's are a bane to the magic community. When you enter one,you are essentially telling WoTC you don't value your money, and are fine with being charged more.
Say you win 50 dollars. Your prize is on the table and you have 3 packages to choose from.
Package 1 10 5 dollar bills
Package 2 5 10 dollar bills
Package 3 2 20 dollar bills - You'd be ludicrous to pick this.
I know its not a great analogy but this scenario is fairly ridiculous anyways. Even the constructed events are 5-3-2-2.
As far as I see it.
If your not good enough to win 8-4s play swiss.
If you are looking for the best play, and the best potential payouts 8-4.
4-3-2-2s don't tend to get you anywhere and you are punishing the player base by telling WoTC you are fine with them shorting us on prizes.
I would like to start by saying your articles are GREAT! They are far and away the ones I most look forward to during the week. I think it is good that you tackled the EV draft question, but...
Your calculations are wrong. You can see this very quickly if you just add up the percentages in the 8-4 situations. According to you the player has a 50% chance of losing in the first round (correct), a 12.5% chance of losing in the third round (correct), and the odds of winning it all are 78% (I assume this is a typo, but the math is wrong anyway). In fact, there is an equal chance of winning the last round and getting 8 packs, or losing the last round and getting 4 packs. This should be clear from the parameters you defined where in the player is average, during the last round you should have an equal chance to win or lose the round. Thus, the real formula is 0.5*0 + 0.25*0 + 0.125*4 + 0.125*8 = 1.5. Which is what you should expect given all the players were defined as equal and there are 12 total packs to divide among them. Your second poster pointed out well why 4-3-2-2 actually pays out even less than you suggest, but either way 8-4 is better EV and the same EV as swiss.
The reason I think this is a big deal is 1) the incorrect math which just misteaches people probabilities (I have a PhD in statistical analysis so I know about this and care), but 2) it misleads people to think that 4-3-2-2 can be a better choice. IT IS NOT. WoTC just makes more money from it, which I guess might be good if you are an employee of them, but even then, just save your extra packs/tix and get the chance to enter more drafts. I hope that is clear, and please add an addendum or correction to your article so people aren't getting false information.
Again, great articles in general and keep up the good work.
That was a cute deck back in Standard. Is it not too slow for you to have a fighting chance against Zoo, or is the incidental lifegain from Firemane and Faith's Fetters enough?
1 Summoner's Pact
4 Force of Will
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Pact of Negation
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Gush
1 Lotus Petal
2 Mystical Tutor
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fastbond
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Protean Hulk
1 Flash
1 Noxious Revival
1 Imperial Seal
2 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Dark Confidant
2 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Polluted Delta
The kill sequence is as follows:
Flash => protean hulk which dies and you search for karmic guide and carrion feeder, returning hulk.
Sac hulk, search for kiki-jiki. Here's the tricky part. Copy karmic guide and retain priority. Sac kiki to feeder and let the token karmic guide come in to return kiki back into play. Repeat for infinite karmic guide beatdown.
This is the smallest flash package available right now but it is vulnerable to both removals and yard hate. Still, those have to get past counter magic.
I've been running Firemane Angel/Zur's weirding control deck for fun.
It's been catching people off guard since they have no idea what they are up against.
It would be interesting to get data on the skill level of drafters in various queue types (8-4, swiss, 4-3-2-2) and how they compare. Since MTGO blocks ratings, we do not have that anymore to get even a rough estimate of the skill of our opponent. Now and then you see misplays or use of cards that pretty clearly suck, but otherwise it can be very difficult to gauge the skill of one's opponent online. Skilled players will tend to be drawn to 8-4, but if enough are drawn to it it can have the perverse effect of driving skilled players away from 8-4 to other queues where their chances of success are greater due to lower average play skill they will have to face. We saw this earlier on in MTGO, where skilled players had little interest in competing against each other in the 1700 room, or whatever it was called, because it decreased their winnings. My own subjective impression is that the weakest players tend to be in the 4-3-3-2 queues rather than the swiss drafts. Perhaps weaker players just want to crack packs and don't have the patience for swiss. In any case, if anyone has an idea on how player skill in these different queues could be clearly determined, I would love to hear it.
So, about the video at the end. 1) Whiffy didn't crack the fetch probably NOT because of being land light; rather, most likely he was either saving it for full value with Top (to see more cards) or kept it up as Wasteland insurance. 2) Yeah, I agree that casting Precursor was a mistake. If he ripped a spot removal spell and targeted the Precursor Golem, he could copy it to kill the Lodestone as well (for others who may not know).
Sounds like you had some bad beats in the League. I too have had some pretty rough draws with Cat Stax Fever. I seem to always get lame City of Traitor hands. >_<
Re: Modern prices . . . man, I remember when people were waiting for the cheap alternate Eternal format (Overextended/Modern) to rid themselves of the expensive ones (Classic/Legacy). I hope they enjoy Rav duals that are more expensive than original duals. >_< Classic 4 life!
4-3-2-2 is:
1/2 for 0
3/8 for 2
15/128 for 3
1/128 for 4
which gives 145/128 or close to 1,13
8-4 is:
112/128 for 0
15/128 for 4
1/128 for 8
which is 68/128 or close to 0,53
8-4 split final is:
112/128 for 0
16/128 for 6
which is 96/128 or 0,75
Btw. if one is doing that EV calculation one should remember that more bad players play swiss than any other format (I think) - and more good players play 8-4. But that would require more parameters
Thanks for spending some time addressing the popularity of 4-3-2-2. I've thought that the frequent criticism of this format, which is clearly the most popular, was simple minded. As you demonstrated, the payout is better for a drafter of average skill than 8-4, and very close to that of swiss. The time factor is also very important. If you want to be able to accumulate a collection of cards through drafting, you are going to be able to do it much more quickly playing 4-3-2-2 than through swiss, as swiss drafts take nearly twice as long in many cases. Lost time is an opportunity cost, and has a real value. Finally, 4-3-2-2 allows one to escape the misery of wading through a swiss draft with a poor deck. Perhaps you just had bad luck with your packs, or had someone switch colors adjacent to you, or something else that threw your draft off, but having to play 3 games with a deck that's really bad is not fun, and perhaps not worth the one pack you might be able to squeeze out of it.
How about a new contest? The "Foil Time Vault if you 4-0 a Daily with 4 Library of Alexandrias main" seems unwinnable.
Gameplay situations like Montolio suggested are good, too, and could lead to discussion in the comments. But put some visuals with them. I hate that about So Many Insane Plays that you can't see what they're talking about when they are describing a hand and asking "what's the play?". You guys have this page here to post images and the mtgo client to take screen shots of. You could use a real situation from a game, ask what the play is, then next week show us what you did and how it turned out. Do something tricky and challenging, though!
More guests.. Cat Weasel is a high-quality player you haven't gotten on yet. XShockwaveX could talk about his landstill deck. Enderfall for some cross-promotion from MTGO Academy. Xkorpio talking about his creasy rogue decks would be great, but I think there's a language barrier there.
i too fall into a Football slumber when the season starts usually i am running 4 fantasy football teams so i understand bro. I give mad props to our Clan they bring it when it comes to classic i think we have some of the best playing classic. i think you guys should hit up legacy in the podcast and maybe even a little Modern but that's just me. Great vids as usual bro.
Do Work
Good work again, sir.
I also wanted to mention that my wife and I are making our way through Game of Thrones, per your suggestion.
The series is awesome. Thanks for that.
Nice, "I feel like I am taking crazy pills" image. Easily the best line in Zoolander.
I have been consistently winning the first round of 4-3-2-2 M2012. I rarely win the second round. To have an equivalent payout in Swiss with my record, I'd have to play all three rounds. What a waste of time. I'd much rather play single elimination and start a new draft. Swiss is torture unless you are trying to learn the set.
This is my recollection as well. 8-4 came first, 4-3-2-2 later on.
You have to consider that the shock lands are highly likely to get reprinted in a standard-legal set as rares (in a set which also has mythics) and therefore they are bound to become much, much cheaper.
Also, while true duals are relatively cheap in MTGO (for now at least), that does not go for paper.
The lack of a reserve list is going to matter a lot down the line. You can expect Goyf to appear in some product as well (maybe an FTV), and the same basically applies to any other Modern staples that are pricey and have power level concerns. WotC has already shown they are willing to put tournament staples in products that are not standard legal, and I believe they will soon show us they will do that even with cards that are fetching big bucks in the secondary market - like Tarmogoyf.
Ivo.
Actually you do not have a equal chance of winning and losing the last round in 8-4 or 4-3-2-2.
It comes down to the setup, which is: If atleast one good player is in a match a good player wins it. I suspect that you missed that is was not just vs. you that this was the case...
You are player 1 in his setup. You win round 1 if player 2 is bad (probability 1/2).
You win round 1 and round 2 if player 1, 2 AND 3 are bad (probability 1/8). E.g. if there is a good player out of 2 and 3, a good player would win round 1 out of those two and hence beat you round 2.
You win round 1, 2 and 3 if everybody else are bad (probability 1/128) for the same reason (as in if atleast one of 5, 6, 7 or 8 is good you will meet a good player in the final - since a good player would win round 1 and round 2).
We hence see that if you reach the final you have a probability of 1/16 to win it (you have a probability of 1/16-1/128 to lose it which gives 1/16 to win)...
You can see the calculations in my first (second if you count the deleted one) post.
I agree about the bad math though :/ (not meant as sarcasm - the preceding is about the analysis not the math)
If we are throwing around credentials then I will point out that I am studying for my PhD in algorithmic game theory (aka. modeling stuff like this and then trying to solve it fast using a computer - it has nothing to do with regular computer games though :( ).
*edit* still, the EV of 4-3-2-2 is close to 1,13 in the scenario outline which IS far from 1,5...
I think the evolution of payouts comes from WOTC's awareness of the problem around the perception of strong players preying on weak players and were trying to resolve this issue. I think the move of getting rid of visible ratings was also made to help this problem.
Anecdotally, when the split between 8-4 and 4-3-2-2 occured, I think WOTC thought that the good players would migrate to the higher EV of 8-4 payouts. All things being equal, they should have. But, at that time MTGO wasn't as well attended as today. Combine that with players wanting to play, right now, (a big part of the appeal of MTGO I think) and 8-4 ended up rarely firing. Good players were willing to play with lower EV payouts in order to start a draft right away. Otherwise, they were forced to wait for a draft that might never fire.
To the best of my recollection, originally there were only 8-4 drafts, period. Then they tried to introduce the 1800+ room to separate the 'sharks' from the 'fish', but that didn't work because the 1800 room was rarely populated by anybody really. Then they introduced 4-3-2-2 drafts. Finally Swiss was introduced.
I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure this is the history of draft payouts on MTGO.
I bet most people play 4-3-2-2 because Swiss is SOOOOOOO slow. The rounds take the full time to finish; you can't go anywhere with that.
no - the odds of winning a given round are not 50/50. In this example, the palyers has a 100% cahnce of winning against a worse player, and a 0% chance of winning against a better player.
The player can only winn the draft if every other player in the draft is a worse player, and the odds of that are 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50%, which equals 0.78%. Not 78%, 0.78%. In other words, the odds of winning the draft are less than 1%.
Re: MMogg
Yes, Modern staples are insanely high right now, but that's not going to last. I believe there are a lot of playsets of Ravnica duals being held by speculators right now, and as soon as the prices stop rising, there's going to be a rush to get out. This is obviously a bubble. We don't even know if Modern will be a success long term; it is pretty much the same format that Extended would have been pre-change, and that Extended wasn't so popular except during PTQ season. I'm not even convinced that the Ravnica duals are worth it, given the excellent mana fixing available now. Remember that we have Vivid lands, tri-lands, fastlands (my name for the Scars duals), filter lands, etc, etc. Also, there's a good possibility that they will be reprinted, possibly as soon as Innistrad. So I wouldn't get too anxious about the cost of manabases just yet. Unless you're playing in Pro Tour Philly, or are a top player, save your money and wait for prices to fall back to reasonable levels.
And they need to nerf the ban list a little.
Plus, I didn't play MTGO until recently. I want to play Splinter Twin, but Shocklands and Pact of Negations are really high and I don't wanna drop a bunch of money on cards that might plummet in value. I may be able to get away with no Shocklands, but Pacts are pretty necessary for that deck IMO.
How awesome is Firespout right now? (rhetorical)
The amount of playable stuff is disgustingly wide open though. I may do a Modern event too. Both for video and for the promo Lightning Bolt (WIN!).
Thanks for this walk through, Jake.
So the EV for swiss is higher and the "full value" of both swiss and 8-4 is better.
The reason why 4-3-2-2's are a bane to the magic community. When you enter one,you are essentially telling WoTC you don't value your money, and are fine with being charged more.
Say you win 50 dollars. Your prize is on the table and you have 3 packages to choose from.
Package 1 10 5 dollar bills
Package 2 5 10 dollar bills
Package 3 2 20 dollar bills - You'd be ludicrous to pick this.
I know its not a great analogy but this scenario is fairly ridiculous anyways. Even the constructed events are 5-3-2-2.
As far as I see it.
If your not good enough to win 8-4s play swiss.
If you are looking for the best play, and the best potential payouts 8-4.
4-3-2-2s don't tend to get you anywhere and you are punishing the player base by telling WoTC you are fine with them shorting us on prizes.
I would like to start by saying your articles are GREAT! They are far and away the ones I most look forward to during the week. I think it is good that you tackled the EV draft question, but...
Your calculations are wrong. You can see this very quickly if you just add up the percentages in the 8-4 situations. According to you the player has a 50% chance of losing in the first round (correct), a 12.5% chance of losing in the third round (correct), and the odds of winning it all are 78% (I assume this is a typo, but the math is wrong anyway). In fact, there is an equal chance of winning the last round and getting 8 packs, or losing the last round and getting 4 packs. This should be clear from the parameters you defined where in the player is average, during the last round you should have an equal chance to win or lose the round. Thus, the real formula is 0.5*0 + 0.25*0 + 0.125*4 + 0.125*8 = 1.5. Which is what you should expect given all the players were defined as equal and there are 12 total packs to divide among them. Your second poster pointed out well why 4-3-2-2 actually pays out even less than you suggest, but either way 8-4 is better EV and the same EV as swiss.
The reason I think this is a big deal is 1) the incorrect math which just misteaches people probabilities (I have a PhD in statistical analysis so I know about this and care), but 2) it misleads people to think that 4-3-2-2 can be a better choice. IT IS NOT. WoTC just makes more money from it, which I guess might be good if you are an employee of them, but even then, just save your extra packs/tix and get the chance to enter more drafts. I hope that is clear, and please add an addendum or correction to your article so people aren't getting false information.
Again, great articles in general and keep up the good work.
That was a cute deck back in Standard. Is it not too slow for you to have a fighting chance against Zoo, or is the incidental lifegain from Firemane and Faith's Fetters enough?
U guys are funny posting a flash deck that doesn't kill. =x
Here's mine:
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Karmic Guide
1 Summoner's Pact
4 Force of Will
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Pact of Negation
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Regrowth
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Gush
1 Lotus Petal
2 Mystical Tutor
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Fastbond
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Protean Hulk
1 Flash
1 Noxious Revival
1 Imperial Seal
2 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Dark Confidant
2 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Polluted Delta
The kill sequence is as follows:
Flash => protean hulk which dies and you search for karmic guide and carrion feeder, returning hulk.
Sac hulk, search for kiki-jiki. Here's the tricky part. Copy karmic guide and retain priority. Sac kiki to feeder and let the token karmic guide come in to return kiki back into play. Repeat for infinite karmic guide beatdown.
This is the smallest flash package available right now but it is vulnerable to both removals and yard hate. Still, those have to get past counter magic.
I've been running Firemane Angel/Zur's weirding control deck for fun.
It's been catching people off guard since they have no idea what they are up against.
It would be interesting to get data on the skill level of drafters in various queue types (8-4, swiss, 4-3-2-2) and how they compare. Since MTGO blocks ratings, we do not have that anymore to get even a rough estimate of the skill of our opponent. Now and then you see misplays or use of cards that pretty clearly suck, but otherwise it can be very difficult to gauge the skill of one's opponent online. Skilled players will tend to be drawn to 8-4, but if enough are drawn to it it can have the perverse effect of driving skilled players away from 8-4 to other queues where their chances of success are greater due to lower average play skill they will have to face. We saw this earlier on in MTGO, where skilled players had little interest in competing against each other in the 1700 room, or whatever it was called, because it decreased their winnings. My own subjective impression is that the weakest players tend to be in the 4-3-3-2 queues rather than the swiss drafts. Perhaps weaker players just want to crack packs and don't have the patience for swiss. In any case, if anyone has an idea on how player skill in these different queues could be clearly determined, I would love to hear it.
Vesuva, Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon has soared in price last week.Also rite of flame has hit ~$3 for a common O.O
Thanks for your continued support of Classic. =)
So, about the video at the end. 1) Whiffy didn't crack the fetch probably NOT because of being land light; rather, most likely he was either saving it for full value with Top (to see more cards) or kept it up as Wasteland insurance. 2) Yeah, I agree that casting Precursor was a mistake. If he ripped a spot removal spell and targeted the Precursor Golem, he could copy it to kill the Lodestone as well (for others who may not know).
Sounds like you had some bad beats in the League. I too have had some pretty rough draws with Cat Stax Fever. I seem to always get lame City of Traitor hands. >_<
Re: Modern prices . . . man, I remember when people were waiting for the cheap alternate Eternal format (Overextended/Modern) to rid themselves of the expensive ones (Classic/Legacy). I hope they enjoy Rav duals that are more expensive than original duals. >_< Classic 4 life!
*deleted*
You are right that swiss is 1,5.
4-3-2-2 is:
1/2 for 0
3/8 for 2
15/128 for 3
1/128 for 4
which gives 145/128 or close to 1,13
8-4 is:
112/128 for 0
15/128 for 4
1/128 for 8
which is 68/128 or close to 0,53
8-4 split final is:
112/128 for 0
16/128 for 6
which is 96/128 or 0,75
Btw. if one is doing that EV calculation one should remember that more bad players play swiss than any other format (I think) - and more good players play 8-4. But that would require more parameters
I might start recording my own Dailies until Innistrad gets out online. Modern is really fun. There are combo decks!
Thanks for spending some time addressing the popularity of 4-3-2-2. I've thought that the frequent criticism of this format, which is clearly the most popular, was simple minded. As you demonstrated, the payout is better for a drafter of average skill than 8-4, and very close to that of swiss. The time factor is also very important. If you want to be able to accumulate a collection of cards through drafting, you are going to be able to do it much more quickly playing 4-3-2-2 than through swiss, as swiss drafts take nearly twice as long in many cases. Lost time is an opportunity cost, and has a real value. Finally, 4-3-2-2 allows one to escape the misery of wading through a swiss draft with a poor deck. Perhaps you just had bad luck with your packs, or had someone switch colors adjacent to you, or something else that threw your draft off, but having to play 3 games with a deck that's really bad is not fun, and perhaps not worth the one pack you might be able to squeeze out of it.
Keep it Classic!
How about a new contest? The "Foil Time Vault if you 4-0 a Daily with 4 Library of Alexandrias main" seems unwinnable.
Gameplay situations like Montolio suggested are good, too, and could lead to discussion in the comments. But put some visuals with them. I hate that about So Many Insane Plays that you can't see what they're talking about when they are describing a hand and asking "what's the play?". You guys have this page here to post images and the mtgo client to take screen shots of. You could use a real situation from a game, ask what the play is, then next week show us what you did and how it turned out. Do something tricky and challenging, though!
More guests.. Cat Weasel is a high-quality player you haven't gotten on yet. XShockwaveX could talk about his landstill deck. Enderfall for some cross-promotion from MTGO Academy. Xkorpio talking about his creasy rogue decks would be great, but I think there's a language barrier there.
The audio has come a long way. Good job!