I actually have an updated deck list I will post when I get home. It's even faster then this one at ramping, and drawing.
The part that stinks about writing the articles for me is, I write the articles with a set deck list in mind, and then I start tinkering with it even more after the article is submitted and there is a new version. I may have to write and article in the future calling it the 2.0 decks or something and talk about the new versions of decks I wrote about in the past.
This article just seems pointless and out of place. It doesn't have much to do with MTGO. The stuff about the podcsts (FNM promos, cruises) belongs on the comments page or forum of the particular podcast host, not here.
But besides that, the "drafting into playsets" section raises a good topic. The problem is that single cards are priced to produce a profit margin on the expected value of the sellable cards selling which is above the *wholesale* cost of packs. We pay 3.99 plus tax (about +50 cents), retail, for booster packs in Canada, for example. A pack-cracking store in the united states probably pays around $2 wholesale, and sells singles to make a profit over that value. He can put the average cost of all sellable rares at 3.00 or 3.50 or whatever, which undercuts packs from my local store. On top of this, many drafters don't care about their cards after drafting, and sell them *cheap* to buy their next draft sets. Because of this, buying packs has been a losing man's game for a long time. The only value added by buying a pack over the singles in it from a wholesale pack-cracker is the fun of drafting. So you hit the nail on the head, but this is the reason behind it.
(Wizards won't let stores ship packs across national borders, but says nothing about shipping singles, so I can't even buy the 2.50 boosters from trollandtoad).
Doh...well I guess I skipped a response or two there lol. Yeah in the case of 1-4 I agree that picking a low rent rare is probably not optimal. Not when there is something remotely relevant. I see Felorin's point of view though that the hate draft was hardly better for his deck than the dual. Hate drafting is good if you know you are going to face the hated card or if it has an "I win now" stamp on it. Deathmark is good as hate goes but it isn't an "I win now" card unless you've been really fortunate with the rest of your game up to drawing it. It might swing a close game though so it's not entirely irrelevant.
RE: The Magic Cruise: Granted I haven't gone back and listened to the podcast in question since it first aired, but I will say that my impression of their ranting was a little bit different than yours. If memory serves, they acknowledged that Wizards and Carnival had screwed Legion Events thoroughly, and leveled most of the criticism at Carnival and the Travel Agent. Though I'm sure there was a lot of exaggerated ranting at Legion as well for things beyond their control, my take-away from that ranting was that they were most upset with Legion for the way they handled their customer service (read: being rude, not understanding) not for not being able to control the fate of the cruise ship, the port change etc.
I used to help run music festivals and when bands canceled, venues had to be changed or ticketing systems went down etc., we knew that there would be ranting done that wasn't super-informed or understanding of our side of things as the promoter. However, we also made sure that every decision we made started by acknowledging our paying customers, trying to accommodate them, and where it was beyond our control, to make sure to take their concerns as legitimate and worth hearing (and to make sure they knew that we felt that way). It meant patience and more work (often personal e-mails or phone calls), but paid off with loyalty to the festival. We're talking festivals that drew in crowds of 25,000, so considerably more than the Magic Cruise attendance. What's more important? Dismissing customers' views as uninformed or acknowledging that as a customer, their concerns are different than yours and "right" or "wrong" should be taken as valuable information?
I guess my same point goes for the Curse of Wizardy promo. Sure, it might not be an FNM promo/meant for FNM play, but if it received a ton of ranting from "other podcasters" as an FNM promo, what is the real root problem? Is it the fruitless argument that all of the players are wrong in their criticism, or does the misunderstanding speak to a bigger communication problem on the Wizards/store level to hedge expectations? Does it speak to something larger than that even?
I think your article rings true, though in its conclusion: "Podcasters and writers, think about what you say / write before you publish it." Advice ALL could benefit from - maybe even Legion Events' Twitter feed, your column and my response to it?
Hey AJ hopefully this means you are back. :) I was refering to the 3/4 of a trillion comment. Trillion being several magnitudes larger than billion. :)
Lets get this straight... promos are not free. They are meant to instill the consumer with goodwill towards the makers of the product. Wizards relies on the fact that because they make promos it will entice further purchase of their products. If they made no money on promos they wouldn't make them.
If you do not get inspired by certain promos; it is your job as the consumer to tell them you don't agree with their promotional items.
I'm a fan of the eh team. I'm also opposed to anyone saying someone else was acting "like four-year-olds" when this is clearly a pretty steep hyperbole. From what I heard they had a right to be mad, they also expounded for comedic value: which is part of their shtick.
I respectfully suggest you take some of your own advice: "writers, think about what you say / write before you publish it. Ranting is fun and all, but your actions can have consequences. "
Joey, if your comments were the only ones on the foils program, I would not have a beef. But, while I didn't agree with everything you two said, I'm not giving this award to your cast. As you said, you did know that CoW was not an FNM.
Original cost was 475,000,000 Euros, according to 2008 articles and various stat sheets. Euros is probably best value, since it was built in an Itailian ship yard. Various reports have apparently used different excahnge rates. Exchange rates do fluctuate. I pulled $750M off a company website.
I really wish that I had saved that Seshiro decklist I tried to make. It was among the first commander decks I tried to make, and it was soooo bad. My inexperience definitely showed. Would have been great to show you just how horrible it was though.
Another card that you picked up on that I didn't was Seed the Land. The lack of ways to make snakes in my old version was tough with the amount of Wraths I recall running into. But overall your deck is definitely well rounded and pretty sweet. And mine sucked. Heh.
1) I'm not sure if you're referring to Yo! MTG Taps! regarding the Curse of Wizardry promo (because we've mentioned it several times on our show), but if so, you are mistaken in assuming we were referring to it as an FNM promo. We're well aware that it is not; however, it's been something of a running gag between us when we refer to cards we think are bad promos.
Also, you said "Many of them b*tched endlessly about how the [FNM promo] cards were not good enough." I personally have made my opinions (negative) on the cards chosen as FNM promos. You can call it "b*tching endlessly" if you want, but my comments—obviously I can only speak for myself here—were backed up with reasons supporting my opinion.
I feel that FNM promos are intended to get players out to FNMs, not to other events in other formats. For example, I intend to make every FNM in February because I want the Spellstutter Sprite FNM promo. On the other hand, I didn't make it a point to get to FNM the month that Cloudpost was the promo.
In that light, I feel that Wizards could do better with the choices and/or timing of their FNM promos. It's my opinion, it's my podcast, and I don't appreciate your unsupported rant (if directed at me, obviously). If you have a different opinion, that's certainly fine. But I don't think it's fair to refer to those whose opinions differ as:
"wast[ing] hours of time complaining"
"sa[ying] a lot of stupid things"
"whining"
"b*tch[ing] endlessly"
2) Kuriboh is on the right track with the comment: "I'm sure if you made plans in advance to go on vacation with your friends/fiancé and found out at the last minute you were getting screwed, then you would be mightily pissed off." I know the podcast you're referring to, and while I didn't agree with everything they said, I don't see any reason they shouldn't have said it. Declaring one's opinion of someone's incompetence is not slanderous; otherwise there would be an exponential amount of lawsuits compared to the ridiculous amount already in the system.
I was also booked on the MC3, and I can identify with the frustrations. I don't place the blame on Legion Events, as I know Steve did what he could. However, I agree with the podcasters in that Carnival did not provide enough compensation to cover the costs of changing the entire trip. This wasn't a hissy fit because the local deli was out of ham for their ham sandwich. These guys were looking forward to the MC3 for MONTHS, and now their options were to either pay additional costs on top of a trip that was already fairly expensive, or abandon the entire thing (which again, they had been looking forward to for a long time). Absolutely they're disappointed! Of course they should be expected to rant! Especially when it happened within roughly the same 24 hours as the time they recorded their podcast—the wound was still fresh!
My other gripe is with the travel agent, who is apparently collecting $20 per person from those that cancel the booking, despite it not being the fault of the customers. Legion has stated that they will cover this cost, but I disagree with the charge in the first place, and Legion should not have to pay it. My girlfriend is a former travel agent, and the work involved in booking a cruise like this is MINIMAL. She recently stated that if she could just sit and book cruises all day, she would, because it's easy and lucrative compared to the amount of work involved. The agency she worked for (which, I might add, we do not hold in high esteem) did not charge for this sort of situation, when the cancellation was not the fault of the customer. It's part of the job of a travel agent; sometimes a ton of work goes into planning a trip that a customer decides never to book in the first place.
I've lost a lot of respect for you for the simple fact that this article comes across only slightly better than the typical forum flaming.
The zeroes are only fine if you are bad at counting.
1 = One
10 = Ten
100 = Hundred
1,000 = Thousand
1,000,000 = Million
1,000,000,000 = Billion
1,000,000,000,000 = Trillion.
At a cost of 750,000,000, that's 3/4 of a Billion, not a Trillion. The article was bad enough as an "Hey! You kids get of my lawn" without displaying poor mathematical skills.
I like how the picture at the beginning represents your mindset while writing this. What an absolute joke of an article. You said "This is what really inspired this article.". Well, if it was clearly this podcast you had an issue with, why didn't you take it to their comments section or email them that you were displeased/offended? Besides, I'm sure if you made plans in advance to go on vacation with your friends/fiancé and found out at the last minute you were getting screwed, then you would be mightily pissed off.
I happened to be listening to that podcast this morning on the way to work. I agree with you that the comments about having another (reserve) ship ready on the spot was ignorant, as was the statement that it shouldn't take 3 months to fix the boat. However, I didn't see these statements as libelous - merely ignorant and uninformed.
Despite that podcast's petulant/whining tone, I found the segment informative. I didn't know the cruise was affected by that ship's fire. It also reinforced my generally low opinion of travel agents.
Finally, if you are looking for more professionalism out of that particular podcast, I wouldn't hold your breath. :-)
The number of zeroes is fine, the cost for manufacture is listed as $697,000,000 elsewhere. Add in the cost of fitting out a luxury cruise liner, and 750,000,000 is likely a decent approximation.
I think you are miscommunicating, because I believe Fel does understand what you are saying. He just disagrees with it. As do I. I can see many reasons why a person might draft Jace over the best card for the deck, but I can also see his reasoning. He won't need it for his collection. He won't be selling it for it's purported market value. He won't be using it in his deck. Therefore to him the Jace is worth less than the bolt. That simple. Should he be running Jace 1.0? I dunno. I don't think I would in this deck though perhaps in others I'd try and splash it.
You're just not getting it. I learned to draft in a shop where all rares were handed in following the tournament and redrafted. Put your mind into that mode and tell me what your best pick is now. Then play as though online did rare redrafts. Your goal is always to win the draft, not some abstract notion of EV.
You seem to be on a negative streak as of late. I agree that the things you listed are dumb. But I have to question the necessity of this article. Pete you have some golden articles behind you, bring some of that old magic to the fore. Being a gadfly is admirable when there is a need but I don't see it here. We are talking stupidity not corruption. By the way you either missed a few 0's (unlikely) or you meant "three quarters of a billion dollars."
Also regarding podcast rants. I can't imagine getting upset about idiots ranting on a podcast. They are 'trying' to be entertaining. Failing? Perhaps but without knowing who they are I can only assume they are catering to their demographic. Whether their statements are actionable or not, it seems unlikely unless they have a huge market share that Carnival, WoTC or anyone else would sue them for slander (not libel by the way, that is putting it in writing.)
Lots of good suggestions guys. Just make sure to keep your enchantment numbers high to help with your card draw.
Elbinac, I've seen you around, but I haven't really been on the past couple of weeks due to the holidays. I think I played this game about 3 weeks ago. I've seen Rubinia decks like the ones you are talking about, but I didn't really want the focus to be about her. Looking back I probably should have pushed the enchantment theme further, actually. Ah well.
P. S. Thanks everyone for the comments. If my goal was to achieve "value" in the form of "getting the most number of comments", then clearly the pick to maximize that metric is the Lightning Bolt rather than the Jace. (That's not my goal, but it is a funny thought!)
I think constructive criticism is what people are looking for.
Down right bashing something doesnt help anyone
ok so i tried to put a post up but for some reason i am being stopped by a spam filter soooo http://overthatop.blogspot.com/2011/01/blog-post.html
I actually have an updated deck list I will post when I get home. It's even faster then this one at ramping, and drawing.
The part that stinks about writing the articles for me is, I write the articles with a set deck list in mind, and then I start tinkering with it even more after the article is submitted and there is a new version. I may have to write and article in the future calling it the 2.0 decks or something and talk about the new versions of decks I wrote about in the past.
This article just seems pointless and out of place. It doesn't have much to do with MTGO. The stuff about the podcsts (FNM promos, cruises) belongs on the comments page or forum of the particular podcast host, not here.
But besides that, the "drafting into playsets" section raises a good topic. The problem is that single cards are priced to produce a profit margin on the expected value of the sellable cards selling which is above the *wholesale* cost of packs. We pay 3.99 plus tax (about +50 cents), retail, for booster packs in Canada, for example. A pack-cracking store in the united states probably pays around $2 wholesale, and sells singles to make a profit over that value. He can put the average cost of all sellable rares at 3.00 or 3.50 or whatever, which undercuts packs from my local store. On top of this, many drafters don't care about their cards after drafting, and sell them *cheap* to buy their next draft sets. Because of this, buying packs has been a losing man's game for a long time. The only value added by buying a pack over the singles in it from a wholesale pack-cracker is the fun of drafting. So you hit the nail on the head, but this is the reason behind it.
(Wizards won't let stores ship packs across national borders, but says nothing about shipping singles, so I can't even buy the 2.50 boosters from trollandtoad).
TY for another splendid article, some ppl wouldnt recognise gold if it was thrown at them !!!
Doh...well I guess I skipped a response or two there lol. Yeah in the case of 1-4 I agree that picking a low rent rare is probably not optimal. Not when there is something remotely relevant. I see Felorin's point of view though that the hate draft was hardly better for his deck than the dual. Hate drafting is good if you know you are going to face the hated card or if it has an "I win now" stamp on it. Deathmark is good as hate goes but it isn't an "I win now" card unless you've been really fortunate with the rest of your game up to drawing it. It might swing a close game though so it's not entirely irrelevant.
RE: The Magic Cruise: Granted I haven't gone back and listened to the podcast in question since it first aired, but I will say that my impression of their ranting was a little bit different than yours. If memory serves, they acknowledged that Wizards and Carnival had screwed Legion Events thoroughly, and leveled most of the criticism at Carnival and the Travel Agent. Though I'm sure there was a lot of exaggerated ranting at Legion as well for things beyond their control, my take-away from that ranting was that they were most upset with Legion for the way they handled their customer service (read: being rude, not understanding) not for not being able to control the fate of the cruise ship, the port change etc.
I used to help run music festivals and when bands canceled, venues had to be changed or ticketing systems went down etc., we knew that there would be ranting done that wasn't super-informed or understanding of our side of things as the promoter. However, we also made sure that every decision we made started by acknowledging our paying customers, trying to accommodate them, and where it was beyond our control, to make sure to take their concerns as legitimate and worth hearing (and to make sure they knew that we felt that way). It meant patience and more work (often personal e-mails or phone calls), but paid off with loyalty to the festival. We're talking festivals that drew in crowds of 25,000, so considerably more than the Magic Cruise attendance. What's more important? Dismissing customers' views as uninformed or acknowledging that as a customer, their concerns are different than yours and "right" or "wrong" should be taken as valuable information?
I guess my same point goes for the Curse of Wizardy promo. Sure, it might not be an FNM promo/meant for FNM play, but if it received a ton of ranting from "other podcasters" as an FNM promo, what is the real root problem? Is it the fruitless argument that all of the players are wrong in their criticism, or does the misunderstanding speak to a bigger communication problem on the Wizards/store level to hedge expectations? Does it speak to something larger than that even?
I think your article rings true, though in its conclusion: "Podcasters and writers, think about what you say / write before you publish it." Advice ALL could benefit from - maybe even Legion Events' Twitter feed, your column and my response to it?
Shawn Petsche
The Broken City School of Magic
Hey AJ hopefully this means you are back. :) I was refering to the 3/4 of a trillion comment. Trillion being several magnitudes larger than billion. :)
Lets get this straight... promos are not free. They are meant to instill the consumer with goodwill towards the makers of the product. Wizards relies on the fact that because they make promos it will entice further purchase of their products. If they made no money on promos they wouldn't make them.
If you do not get inspired by certain promos; it is your job as the consumer to tell them you don't agree with their promotional items.
I'm a fan of the eh team. I'm also opposed to anyone saying someone else was acting "like four-year-olds" when this is clearly a pretty steep hyperbole. From what I heard they had a right to be mad, they also expounded for comedic value: which is part of their shtick.
I respectfully suggest you take some of your own advice: "writers, think about what you say / write before you publish it. Ranting is fun and all, but your actions can have consequences. "
Joey, if your comments were the only ones on the foils program, I would not have a beef. But, while I didn't agree with everything you two said, I'm not giving this award to your cast. As you said, you did know that CoW was not an FNM.
Other podcasters were not so well informed.
A couple commentators said "they had every right to be pissed off," or words to that effect.
Sure. They had every right to be disappointed and upset. However, being pissed off does not give anyone the right to libel or slander someone else.
"This sux and I'm pissed" = fine.
"This sux, and I'm pissed, so clearly everyone involved is a satan-worshipping cannibal." = not so much.
That's what I was pissed about.
Original cost was 475,000,000 Euros, according to 2008 articles and various stat sheets. Euros is probably best value, since it was built in an Itailian ship yard. Various reports have apparently used different excahnge rates. Exchange rates do fluctuate. I pulled $750M off a company website.
I really wish that I had saved that Seshiro decklist I tried to make. It was among the first commander decks I tried to make, and it was soooo bad. My inexperience definitely showed. Would have been great to show you just how horrible it was though.
Another card that you picked up on that I didn't was Seed the Land. The lack of ways to make snakes in my old version was tough with the amount of Wraths I recall running into. But overall your deck is definitely well rounded and pretty sweet. And mine sucked. Heh.
To roll poorly once may be regarded as misfortune. To roll poorly TWICE looks like carelessness.
1) I'm not sure if you're referring to Yo! MTG Taps! regarding the Curse of Wizardry promo (because we've mentioned it several times on our show), but if so, you are mistaken in assuming we were referring to it as an FNM promo. We're well aware that it is not; however, it's been something of a running gag between us when we refer to cards we think are bad promos.
Also, you said "Many of them b*tched endlessly about how the [FNM promo] cards were not good enough." I personally have made my opinions (negative) on the cards chosen as FNM promos. You can call it "b*tching endlessly" if you want, but my comments—obviously I can only speak for myself here—were backed up with reasons supporting my opinion.
I feel that FNM promos are intended to get players out to FNMs, not to other events in other formats. For example, I intend to make every FNM in February because I want the Spellstutter Sprite FNM promo. On the other hand, I didn't make it a point to get to FNM the month that Cloudpost was the promo.
In that light, I feel that Wizards could do better with the choices and/or timing of their FNM promos. It's my opinion, it's my podcast, and I don't appreciate your unsupported rant (if directed at me, obviously). If you have a different opinion, that's certainly fine. But I don't think it's fair to refer to those whose opinions differ as:
"wast[ing] hours of time complaining"
"sa[ying] a lot of stupid things"
"whining"
"b*tch[ing] endlessly"
2) Kuriboh is on the right track with the comment: "I'm sure if you made plans in advance to go on vacation with your friends/fiancé and found out at the last minute you were getting screwed, then you would be mightily pissed off." I know the podcast you're referring to, and while I didn't agree with everything they said, I don't see any reason they shouldn't have said it. Declaring one's opinion of someone's incompetence is not slanderous; otherwise there would be an exponential amount of lawsuits compared to the ridiculous amount already in the system.
I was also booked on the MC3, and I can identify with the frustrations. I don't place the blame on Legion Events, as I know Steve did what he could. However, I agree with the podcasters in that Carnival did not provide enough compensation to cover the costs of changing the entire trip. This wasn't a hissy fit because the local deli was out of ham for their ham sandwich. These guys were looking forward to the MC3 for MONTHS, and now their options were to either pay additional costs on top of a trip that was already fairly expensive, or abandon the entire thing (which again, they had been looking forward to for a long time). Absolutely they're disappointed! Of course they should be expected to rant! Especially when it happened within roughly the same 24 hours as the time they recorded their podcast—the wound was still fresh!
My other gripe is with the travel agent, who is apparently collecting $20 per person from those that cancel the booking, despite it not being the fault of the customers. Legion has stated that they will cover this cost, but I disagree with the charge in the first place, and Legion should not have to pay it. My girlfriend is a former travel agent, and the work involved in booking a cruise like this is MINIMAL. She recently stated that if she could just sit and book cruises all day, she would, because it's easy and lucrative compared to the amount of work involved. The agency she worked for (which, I might add, we do not hold in high esteem) did not charge for this sort of situation, when the cancellation was not the fault of the customer. It's part of the job of a travel agent; sometimes a ton of work goes into planning a trip that a customer decides never to book in the first place.
I've lost a lot of respect for you for the simple fact that this article comes across only slightly better than the typical forum flaming.
Joey Pasco
Co-host, Yo! MTG Taps! podcast
The zeroes are only fine if you are bad at counting.
1 = One
10 = Ten
100 = Hundred
1,000 = Thousand
1,000,000 = Million
1,000,000,000 = Billion
1,000,000,000,000 = Trillion.
At a cost of 750,000,000, that's 3/4 of a Billion, not a Trillion. The article was bad enough as an "Hey! You kids get of my lawn" without displaying poor mathematical skills.
I'm not talking about Jace, I'm talking about the dual land on P1P4, please read above
I like how the picture at the beginning represents your mindset while writing this. What an absolute joke of an article. You said "This is what really inspired this article.". Well, if it was clearly this podcast you had an issue with, why didn't you take it to their comments section or email them that you were displeased/offended? Besides, I'm sure if you made plans in advance to go on vacation with your friends/fiancé and found out at the last minute you were getting screwed, then you would be mightily pissed off.
I happened to be listening to that podcast this morning on the way to work. I agree with you that the comments about having another (reserve) ship ready on the spot was ignorant, as was the statement that it shouldn't take 3 months to fix the boat. However, I didn't see these statements as libelous - merely ignorant and uninformed.
Despite that podcast's petulant/whining tone, I found the segment informative. I didn't know the cruise was affected by that ship's fire. It also reinforced my generally low opinion of travel agents.
Finally, if you are looking for more professionalism out of that particular podcast, I wouldn't hold your breath. :-)
The number of zeroes is fine, the cost for manufacture is listed as $697,000,000 elsewhere. Add in the cost of fitting out a luxury cruise liner, and 750,000,000 is likely a decent approximation.
I think you are miscommunicating, because I believe Fel does understand what you are saying. He just disagrees with it. As do I. I can see many reasons why a person might draft Jace over the best card for the deck, but I can also see his reasoning. He won't need it for his collection. He won't be selling it for it's purported market value. He won't be using it in his deck. Therefore to him the Jace is worth less than the bolt. That simple. Should he be running Jace 1.0? I dunno. I don't think I would in this deck though perhaps in others I'd try and splash it.
You're just not getting it. I learned to draft in a shop where all rares were handed in following the tournament and redrafted. Put your mind into that mode and tell me what your best pick is now. Then play as though online did rare redrafts. Your goal is always to win the draft, not some abstract notion of EV.
You seem to be on a negative streak as of late. I agree that the things you listed are dumb. But I have to question the necessity of this article. Pete you have some golden articles behind you, bring some of that old magic to the fore. Being a gadfly is admirable when there is a need but I don't see it here. We are talking stupidity not corruption. By the way you either missed a few 0's (unlikely) or you meant "three quarters of a billion dollars."
Also regarding podcast rants. I can't imagine getting upset about idiots ranting on a podcast. They are 'trying' to be entertaining. Failing? Perhaps but without knowing who they are I can only assume they are catering to their demographic. Whether their statements are actionable or not, it seems unlikely unless they have a huge market share that Carnival, WoTC or anyone else would sue them for slander (not libel by the way, that is putting it in writing.)
Lots of good suggestions guys. Just make sure to keep your enchantment numbers high to help with your card draw.
Elbinac, I've seen you around, but I haven't really been on the past couple of weeks due to the holidays. I think I played this game about 3 weeks ago. I've seen Rubinia decks like the ones you are talking about, but I didn't really want the focus to be about her. Looking back I probably should have pushed the enchantment theme further, actually. Ah well.
P. S. Thanks everyone for the comments. If my goal was to achieve "value" in the form of "getting the most number of comments", then clearly the pick to maximize that metric is the Lightning Bolt rather than the Jace. (That's not my goal, but it is a funny thought!)