• Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Hi Enderfall - I agree about the importance on accessiblity of the Power 9 and I really do like the idea of two price points one for non-foil and one for foil - What would be really ironic is in 5 years time if the non-foil is worth more simply because many more players opted for the higher priced foil sets on release. As a foil fan I would have no problem paying 150% more on the price over the non foil version. In one of the replies I suggested a price point of:

    Nonfoil Set - $34.99
    Foil Set - $49.99

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    You are absolutely right sir that if we have cheap power the other cards in the format increase but this is where WOTC wins and where the indirect profit sits. They simply roll out MED1234 sealed events (and their pilot experiment of the last two weeks has shown how successful this is) and part of the reason for the timing of this article)). WOTC would make so much indirect money from the release of cheap power 9 and firing MED1234 till the cows come home is one such mechanism (ill stop here as the rest of the points I have made above).

    I fail to see why the paper and MTGO anniversaries equates to a "monkey wrench" let alone "another" monkey wrench. If you are saying this will push back the release of P9 further then so be it. The longer they wait the longer they hurt themselves but thats just my view. If we push on then what better way to celebrate the decades than with Promo Foil Force of Will in digital and paper around that timeframe.

    Whiffy makes a good point if we get alternate art power 9 you can modify the associate image file so that you see the original arts (this "fix" will be client side so only you will see that change - your opponents cards will also be "fixed" on your screen too). Once the tidal wave of power 9 hits there is nothing stopping WOTC from giving out original art Power 9 as the most awesome prizes for wining MOCS seasons or other such achievement.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    "which makes wotc more money?"

    In response to you question Gainsbanding I will answer this in a roundabout way as perhaps my message is not clear from the article.

    What is important is the bigger picture. Bringing new players to MTGO, growing the player base. Considering what makes WOTC more money is not simply how much money they can grab directly from the release of Power 9 but has to take into account the indirect profit. The real cash cow becomes the MED1234 sealed events. Give people cheap power, the casuals will love them for nostaligia but the players who want to play vintage need their staples and will need to stump up cash or grind the MED1234 queues (whiffy said below that WOTC better put MED1234 up for a month) well guess what thats exactly what they do that is where the indirect revenue is generated.

    Now in response to the which is more exciting question:

    Remember the audience is very diverse, the people that would love power are not necessarily all grinders or even already on MTGO (and thats the point of this marketing approach). What as a new player gets you more excited being able to play magic 24/7 and be able to pick up the Power 9 in your first week online, or having to draft them where yuo are more than likely to sit down in your first draft open a rare on the scale of Wood Elemental and get blown out R1 by a more experienced player (both in terms of play skill and knowlegde of the clinet). Again the Marketing message of Power 9 online for $34.99 is imense it is akin to the theme parks that offer 2 rooms for the price of one (knowing that once they have a captive audience they can charge $10 for a soda) or the pub chain that advertises 2 eat of $10 when they know they can cream the money in from selling beer at $4 a pint and from repeat customers outside of the promotional offer.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    at alt art.
    ok so there is this function within the game where you can change the art and frame of specific cards, just saying.

    i would love me a chance to buy them all up front and get them for 50-250 bucks. but drfating seems like a good way for them to go. also assuming that we do get a 35-50 dollar box o power, dosent that mean if its succesful duals double and force/waste/drain rise, rise, rise. They had better roll out the 1234 for about 2 weeks to a month to keep staples in check.

    Also another monkey wrench you may not have noticed. MTGO is 10 years old next summer. 10!paper is 20! can you believe that?? What better way to celebrate those milestones, then with power online? which effects both brands in a serious way?

  • Penguin TV - Christmas Beatings   14 years 3 weeks ago

    1. You probably did, however with dredge and firestorm. I need to get my clock going, they are a fast deck, and have great enevatability against rg cause it is slow. I was racing the firestorm/kill and needed to dump my guides to win b4 i lost. risk/reward.

    2. I have a full collection, and when i dont have cards i buy or borrow them from friends. My goal is to provide tournament viable decks that i would run in events. This was a "mock" de but if the event had fired i was ready to run this in the que. Because of this the lists are optimised for best prize penetration, there is also a classic player of the year race which im in 3rd for. The reason it is 2 instead of 0,1,4 is becasue, a. thats how many the vintage list ran, and what i think, b. They are the worst land in the deck, but they do provide access to both colors so you can run out r and g spells on t1,2,3 with only wastes as other lands. Also you dont want to have just 1 in your deck because sometimes you need to fetch it and drawing your 1 copy could be a problem.

    I feel like this deck could run fine with out taigas at all, it would be less consistent in the long run say 100 games it would affect you about 5-10 of them. I would add more fetch lands for them.
    It was also said that ghost quarter is an acceptable replacement to wasteland. This is a yes and a no. Magus does real work, you dont wanna give them a land. However classic decks run very few if any basics in them. Most blue decks run one island, and dredge and shops usally have 0. Fish runs 1-3 and turbo tezz/mono blue run 3-5. It would cost considerbaly less and it would almost be 5 strip mines. However the long term consistency gets hurt again like wirh taiga.
    I also freely admit that Tarmogoyf is terrible but needed. If you or anybody can find a suitable replacement that ends the game for 1-3 mana then by all means get him out of there.

    If your brave enough and willing to fight some consistency errors you could shave off nearly 400 tix from the price by going - 4 tarmo, - 4 waste, -2 taiga.

    Hope that helps.

  • Penguin TV - Christmas Beatings   14 years 3 weeks ago

    good to know my favorite color combination GR is viable against "big name" decks - it's no Erhnam n' Burn 'Em from back in the day, but it seems to work okay considering what the competition is capable of ...

    couple questions/comments - I'm no where near an expert but...

    1. Did I see you play spirit guides as creatures before attacking against a deck that you know could wipe the board with Firestorm? or am I just remembering other times you played creatures in first main phase (I watched the videos in chunks over a two-day span - I have several young children)

    2. Taigas ... why just 2? I don't recall seeing you grab them with the fetch lands more than maybe once. If you don't really need them, it makes the deck slightly cheaper for us casual players and eliminates a early game wasteland target. If you do really need them, why not run all 4 and a few less mountains, after Magus hits the board they'll literally be replacing the mountains you took out. I suppose 2 is the compromise between the run none and run four arguments.

    Thanks - I really liked what you were trying to do with this one!

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    I don't see it. They know how much people love to draft. What's more exciting: buying a box of all your Power or opening a Mox in a draft? Which makes Wizards more money?
    I think Masters Editions will continue and become less about bringing new cards online and more about keeping the duals and other pre-Mirage money cards in print with the limited cards being mostly reprints. Duals in even years, mana drain/force/workshop/bazaar in odd years? Maybe they'll even add in some post-Mirage money cards like Wasteland. I don't think that anyone is missing most of the cards that are left (did you know Knights v Dragons brought two brand new cards to MTGO in Alaborn Cavalier and some random card from Masques block? Nobody really cared.), but there are a handful that people want like Rocket Launcher or Sorceress Queen that would fit perfectly in future Masters sets. But cards like that won't drive sales, there's got to be money cards and that's where I see P9 fitting in.
    Anyway, just my theory. They seem to have no clue what they are going to do either.
    The only thing that is certain is that "Vintage without Power" is something very few people want to play.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    You make a good point, Montolio. Making P9 accessible will hopefully bring more people into the format. I can't help but think of the problems that Vintage has, accessibility to the P9 has to be near the top of the list. Sure, lots of Tournaments allow for proxies to drive attendance, but MTGO has no such ability. While we all would like to see Lotus be an expensive card for nostalgia, as it doesn't seem as powerful if it's a $10 card, making the format less accessible is a recipe for further disaster. If anything, make two versions of this FTV set, foil and non-foil, thus making the foil versions much high in price, and available for a very limited opportunity (i.e. shorter than that of the non-foil version).

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Hey Andy, good read.

    I wouldn't be surprised to see this come out in an Exiled set. As a matter of fact I am hedging my bets it does come out as an Exiled set.
    If it does it will be reasonable for everyone to have power which will draw a ton of people to Vintage. If this comes to pass I pray that they don't change the art from the original's. The Power is all about nostalgia for me, and making it easily accessible for all with an art change is hardly an appetizing scenario for me.
    Having said that, I will take Power in any form right now as I am desparate to cast a Black Lotus.
    Exiled-Power 9 here we come.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Articles like this are important to keep pressure and awareness of the issue in MTGO dialogue.

    I like the idea of a FTV: P9. One of the most important issues is to keep the format accessible. People don't play formats because of a sense of 'mythicness', they play it for fun. Trying to replicate some scarcity and preciousness of P9 online would only serve to emulate the demise of paper Vintage. With MTGO, we have a chance for a Vintage Renaissance, where more people than ever can start playing and brewing Vintage.

    Oh and in b4, "I'm not playing Vintage if they don't have original art p9 online." >_< Some people seriously LOOK for excuses not to participate.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    PS if anyone has a Foil Urza's Saga Voltaic Key they can sell please contact me in client Eternal_Hammer

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Oops this wad meant to be in response to George/Whiffy

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    MED is finished I still expect to be waiting till January for the new client and FTV MTC at the earliest and that assumed a Beta starting next month. Really though does it make WOTC more money. Give people cheap power 9 and people come online, give the players cheap power 9 and they queue all future MED1234 Cash Cow Sealed Events that WOTC throw up every six months, give the people cheap power and they become enticed into the world of MTGO and spend money on the support cards. Give people cheap power 9 is like a tax cut, it fuels spending, prosperity and the feel good factor. Sometimes the way to big bucks is not from cranking out an overpriced product that is out of financial reach of so many. You know why the bic biro was so successful?
    We don't need MED5 we simply need Power and the ability to roll put MED 1234 sealed events whenever the cows need milking.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    I assume this is sarcasm. It would be an epic fail if the most iconic cards of a tradable card game were u tradable.
    Again the real benefit is Marketing and limiting the use of these cards makes no sense when explaining the concept of MTGO and drawing in new players.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Please remember that I believe the right Scenario was to have Power 9 in MED4. Two years ago the thought of excluding p9 and releasing in a separate set would have been milking the cow.
    Now FTV MTC needs to be rebrand FTV Our Last Change. Why is everyone buying into the idea that Power Nine need to be expensive. The biggest gain for WOTC is the marketing angle and the flood of new players which longterm generates so much more money than an overpriced product that alienates the player base. Perhaps I am Creasy (alfa 2007) but I believe the price point will be $34.99 for a set of alternate art Power 9 and perhaps $49.99 for a set of alternate art Power 9 Foil. Assuming the product is only ever released for a two or three week window eventually the price of power will rise dramatically. However, this pricing means most people can afford these iconic card and the marketing strength of such release alongside the new client would be immense.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    you want to talk about "milking the cow"? WotC will release Walk in MED 5, Twister in 6, Recall in 7, Lotus in 8 and the maybe the mox cycle in 9....THAT is milking it..but probably what we will get. No way they release a FTV with all these cards, alt art or not...unless they price it at about 200 bucks a pop.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    I can see it now... alternate art power 9 released as planeswalker cards for signing up with the new client. Classic stays pure but players can still use the power 9 in a limited format.

    Ha, ha. Cough sorry.

  • Rogue Play - Fighting Steel With... Wurms?   14 years 3 weeks ago

    The truth is that I don't have a microphone :(.

    Thanks for the comments and suggestions, I do appreciate them.

    LE

  • Rogue Play - Fighting Steel With... Wurms?   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Nah it's not just you. I believe that his video capture program either doesn't have the ability to record sound or he choose to disconnect his mic so as to comment during his games.

    Anyhow nice replays LE but I'd really like to see ALL of the games not just the ones you won. One learns MUCH more from the losses then the wins. Granted even with the wins I noted several plays that i would have done differently such as:
    I personally keeping a irrelevant land back in hand to bluff an opponent who knows you run cards that can ruin his day.
    Playing a wellspring when u had one in play with a core down. I personally would had sacced the spring to the core since your deck doesn't care about metal craft.
    This accomplishes two things #1 you gain 1 life for the same mana investment and #2 You're not giving more information to your opponent then absolutely needed.
    Granted these are seriously small nit picks and just off the top of my head as there were others but as said it's alot easier to learn from a loss then a win.
    Granted there is no better teacher then just pickin up a deck and playing it but hopefully what I've said makes some sense.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    to play devils advocate, while I agree marketing for limited time FTV:MTC would be sweet with v4, i cant imagine thats the best way to make money, not when you can make them into a draftable set. I would love them at the start of v4, or heck even a little concrete planning. I fear however we will wait till sept-january at earlyest for med 5.

  • Eternal Uncertainty Two Years On!   14 years 3 weeks ago

    AWESOME article Andy! I really enjoyed the read...

    Hopefully this sheds some light on what most of the classic enthusiasts bemoan: "YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE PLANNING"

    Get on it WotC! We are very interested, DotP was a cute joke but how about MODO????

  • Drafting With a Hick - When at first you don't succeed...   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Thanks for the advice DreadWaffle, I will give it a shot when I have the chance to pick some up. Sounds legit!

    Love the list Radd, I will load it up and check it outz!!

  • Drafting With a Hick - When at first you don't succeed...   14 years 3 weeks ago

    I am pretty in love with the controlling side (See: blue) of Legacy. It is a great format that is as wide open as it has ever been.

    If I decide to join a DE or join a Leg 2man or 8man I will consider posting the vid here, same if I have any new tech I want to showcase. Appreciate the support apaulagy

    (sadly, I agree with your Standard synopsis, consider it one & done :) )

  • Drafting With a Hick - When at first you don't succeed...   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Thanks for the comment Hammerman!

  • Drafting With a Hick - When at first you don't succeed...   14 years 3 weeks ago

    Thanks for the comment Eldarock, always appreciate your feedback!

    To anyone interested in joining Clan Magic Eternal just message myself (The_Hoff/abstrakt66) or George (Whiffy Penguin) and we will discuss internally.

    Best,

    Zach