Damn, everyone went ahead and made all the good points before I had the chance. I will stick my oar in and say that (in my opinion) Caveat Emptor is a more significant rule than you make it sound. Anyone is free to cancel the trade at any time. There's no need to click 'Confirm' unless you're happy, and even then the system gives you a second chance to back out.
If you're fool enough to rely on the person you're trading with to tell you if the trade is fair or not (and the vast majority of casual traders I've interacted with have been honest and reliable), then well... caveat emptor. This is a wider life lesson, and is in no way exclusive to Magic.
"Hello Mr saleman, I'd like to buy your used car. It looks really expensive and rusty, but if you tell me it's just fine, then I'll hand over all my cash and break down fifty yards up the road."
I don't see how the 'value' argument works. Neither will the NYSE, the LSE or any other trading system from the 'real' world. A has something. B wants it. No extra value needs to be added other than A's willingness to let that something go for a price.
I once traded away an Angel of Despair for roughly half of its value because I didn't check my mental prices were up to date. I didn't get angry at the buyer, well done him, he got a bargain. I learnt a lesson though. And that lesson was caveat emptor.
In conclusion, thank you for a thought provoking and interesting article.
Trading online, the way the game was originally intended is dead. The whole "let's trade and see if there is anything you like" type of trade is ridiculously inefficient and a waste of time in most cases. Most traders have a very small list of cards they want.
Most of the outrageous, unethical, take advantage of little kids, type of trading occurs because there are new players who don't know this type of trading is dead, and sharks who are willing and able to take advantage of new players.
I've read Plejades articles and he doesn't do this type of trading. To use your potato chip analogy, he and those like him online, are usually acting as personal grocery shoppers. Bots and big traders are not looking at everybody's individual buy and sell advertisements on the board. Most of us don't have the time to wade through the pages of advertisements that are somewhat poorly managed by the Classifieds board.
I had a snarky reply here, but decided to delete it after a more thoughtful perusal of you own blog posting, which i found fairly well reasoned and does not make you sound like a magnificent ass. I do think this:
"Maybe, I should stop doing my homework in school and then I can call my classmates unethical swine when they won't give me the answers on the test. They spent their time studying and doing the homework, but I don't care. I can't be bothers to do those things, so obviously I expect that all my hard working classmates will just hand me the answers, right? If they don't give me the answers, they are clearly stealing from me; robbing me of the opportunity for me to pass the test."
Is an absolutely ridiculous and pointless example, and does make you sound like a magnificent ass.
Very recently I think. It has not been legal in the past. What I really want to play with is Fire Imps which cost 3cmc and deal 2. Much better card. But we take what we can get. I will definitely see about getting some slingers now that it is in range. Thanks for the heads up.
At first sight, perhaps at least test replacing Gatekeeper with Skinrender. He's one less black mana as a removal spell, and he's got a beefier body. He can also target creatures you want to target, whereas Gatekeeper gives your opponent a choice. Adding to that, I would also switch Steady Progress for Tainted Strike, at least to test it. My reasoning is that the +1 gives your opponent an extra counter and Tainted Strike works well with Skinrender and may even allow your Birds of Paradise to get in for 1. I realize that the latter is worse than Steady Progress because of proliferate (pretty much guaranteed to add a counter to your opponent's poison status) and also gets you a cantrip; however, it means you are less reliant on a blue source of mana.
Anyway, I'm really interested in seeing if this deck has anything to it. Since RDW seems to have just added 8 mythics (Masti-mcNasty 3.0 and Koth), I don't think I'm going to be able to keep playing red and need a new budget oriented deck for Standard. =)
This is Mr. Pack to Power (Jonathan Medina). I just wanted to pop my head in and say "Hi" and of course to share my opinion. Since I don't consider myself an unethical thief. :)
Your article lacked convincing reasons to support your points. For example, you said that you went to school to learn how to create furniture and this adds intangible value to the work that you do. I agree with this, since not everyone has the knowledge that you have. What I don't get is how you can use the value of knowlege to support one claim but disregard it to make your point, that trading for value is unethical.
Knowledge of card prices and trajectory have value, because the require time and resources to acquire. To give this to someone for free should not be mandatory. Do you freely offer your furniture customers lessons in making furniture? Why should I be responsible to educate?
While my trade partner was having a great time, getting drunk and drafting with his friends, I was studying pricing trends and top 8 decklists. Yet, somehow my time is not worth anything to you (nor is my newfound knowledge) instead, I am supposed to use this knowledge to educate the guy who doesn't care enough to check prices for himself?
Maybe, I should stop doing my homework in school and then I can call my classmates unethical swine when they won't give me the answers on the test. They spent their time studying and doing the homework, but I don't care. I can't be bothers to do those things, so obviously I expect that all my hard working classmates will just hand me the answers, right? If they don't give me the answers, they are clearly stealing from me; robbing me of the opportunity for me to pass the test.
Here is my full response to this type of thinking:
Man, you gotta have balls to play with Eunuchs! ;) Couldn't resist.
I think that highlights one of the limitations of Heirloom. When I saw you included Corrupt Eunuchs I checked out Ghitu Slinger (Despite the echo, I think the increased versatility of Slinger makes it superior to the Eunuchs) on mtgotraders and sure enough it was 10 cents (the legal limit for Heirloom uncommons). Yet, it's not on the list of legal cards, so I guess the price changed recently. =/
I figured it would be review for many players. Your example of virtual advantage is also correct. Like I said in the article, there are many different article referencing this subject and many of them have different ideas. Thanks for reading!
I dont agree with your assumption that the "fair value" of a card can be defined through a "somehow fair market index of a major traders". I agree with you that it is reasonable to use them as indicators for stupid trades though.
I also don't agree with you that the "Pack to Power" are somehow unmoral or unethical. The online market is intransparent and fragemented by design and a major part of the game experience. You can easily prevent bad trades if you just know how to basically play the trade game..
Suggestion how the trade experience could be improved:
- Provide online real price indexes within MTGO based on actuall trades
- Provide online trading tools that are state of the art for online transaction and auctions
- Provide a online currency which can be split up in order to allow "normal" trading of commons. (It could be either virtual currency that can be split however or soemthing like gold tix, silver tix and copper tix similar to other online games)
- Provide online possiblity to show a valuation of the card acccording to some index/price list whatsoever.
=> There are a lot of virtual markets and even games with virtual markets which work way better than the MTGO system. Why not improve MTGO?
=> There will always be player "shark" traders independent of the system.
=> It is a trading card game and trading is most obviously a major playground of the game. Trading IS competitive by intention.
interesting article about a sensitive topic. As one of the current evil "Pack to Power" traders at MTGOacademy.com I would like to add my "two tickets" to the discussion as I believe there are a few points that warrant a second look. I do hope that I do not come across as "Troll", but I have to make my point on this clear.
I do NOT believe that you have to make unethical trades to grow collection values and frankly I also don't believe that the "zero sum" theorem is applicable for a trading card game and I am not sure why this theorem is falsely used in so many articles.
Arguments are easy to refute if you show the flaws in the underlying assumptions. So I will state two strong assumptions you are making in your article to support your reasoning and conclusion and try to show that they are debatable (I apologize in advance for my own flaws in grammar and spelling - English is my third language).
Assumptions:
Dealer prices are what mostly defines value of Magic cards and trading Magic cards is a "zero sum game".
Quote: "The flip side, of course, is that this is only possible if his trading partners have lost a lot of money. This sort of trading is a zero sum game. No value has been added in the process. The only thing that has changed is the ownership of the cards."
While you are putting this assumption into perspective with arguments ranging from "added value" from dealers to "trading extras" you are still using it as one of your main pillars to define what is a fair trade. There are many factors that influence value which also makes the economic "zero sum" theorem void. I would actually argue that Magic has a significant enough possibility for "Pareto improvements" to kill the notion of zero sum economy. Let me give two simple examples:
a) I am trading a card "worth" 5.5 tickets for your card "worth" 6 tickets which completes your set you want to redeem.
b) I am trading you 500 commons you need for your decks "worth" 3 tickets for your 2.5 ticket rare. I am happy as I traded up and you are happy because you can finally start building some fun decks you had in mind.
Of course dealers would love everyone to believe that their pricelist in fact IS value but ultimately it's only what a dealer wants for a card or is willing to pay for it - not more and not less. This is especially apparent for low circulation cards which again make it possible to increase value without screwing someone. For example:
You have a promo foil you bought from a bot for 8 tickets that is very hard to get and you sell it a few weeks later to a collector who is happy he finally got the card for 12 tickets from you. I cannot see how anyone here got screwed. The bot, because he valued the card for 8? The happy collector who finally got the card he was looking for?
Of course there are trades that are obviously unethical - trading your Craw Wurm for a kids' Force of Will cannot be put in a perspective that argues with Pareto Improvements or other factors. I just wanted to stress the fact that you can do trades over and over, improve value without wracking havoc doing so. I have and will continue to make trades that provide value for both sides, use free resources that are available to everyone (such as freebots) and find the right buyer who sees the added value you are denying exists for the small seller (quote:"Online, I can hit the MTGOTradersBot and have a very good chance of being able to buy the cards I really want, immediately. That is an added value. However, the traders trying to go "pack to power" don't have the inventory to provide that sort of value.")
What you are missing here is that a small trader can use another resource to compensate for the lack of inventory - time. I am willing to invest time to find the buyer that exactly needs the few cards I have thus providing the same value as a big dealer that according to you has the right to profit.
I am happy to hear more arguments on this, in particular why you believe in the "zero sum" nature of Magic: The Gathering.
@Feast (love the card reference from Homelands...best art in that set.) Yeah Hypercascade might be the slow way to go when you have a ton of instant kill combos to worry about but it has some kick. I am not ready to completely dismiss it yet. Dovescape might be interesting. I am well aware the list is jank (notice I call it that in the article :p) Hence I did not bring it. But I do think it has untapped potential and I prefer a more controlling approach over rush and hope for the best.
@Lord E - Any time you need something just ask :) Yeah I was impressed with how nasty AJ's deck turned out to be and that was knowing how badass Molten-Tail is.
@Xaos - Thanks!
@Thuh - :D Thanks for posting that, I wish I'd had it before the article to include. I see you added the Sphinges which make the sudden death approach more appealing I think. :)
I have to admit that Heirloom is one of the most interesting formats I tried lately. It's really amazing to see the power level of decks that cost even less than $5 to build. Oh and Xaos is doing a great job hosting the events and supporting the format with prizes.
Masticores with Gibbering Descent is awesome.
Very nice banner by the way. I know where to go now if I need to change mine.
I do agree that it isn't morally right to try to do these things to people, but I disagree with your logic.
A single person trading this way is in a way a small dealer. They make profit through exchanging cards. You say that these crafty traders are knowingly ripping people off. A large scale dealer is knowingly ripping people off, too. The difference is, that because they have a huge inventory of cards that cycle quickly, as well as good advertising (most mtgo players know about these bots), they can afford to rip people off a little bit at a time.
You can argue that the bigger bot chains must adhere more strictly to the 'invisible' market value. This is a good point, and you can see the market influence just by comparing bots. However, these small traders who try to pack to power are also influenced by the market price (just not as much). I'm sure that these people would want to trade their pack straight up for their force of will, but nobody would take that trade. They have to rip people off little by little (more than dealers, but still gradually) to build up to that.
Seriously, with the advent of the internet and smartphones and cheap computers making internet almost omnipresent, it is VERY simple to check market price. Since most people know about bot chains like MTGO Traders, they could just open up a very simple query for the cards in question, or even go on a website like supernovabots that gives prices on a static website in nearly real time (updated every 15 minutes). So either these people don't know about bots, or they don't want to go through the hassle of selling their card to buy the cards they want. In other words, these people may use the 'small trader' for convenience and to save time.
Oh, and really, the person trading to these scam artists have just as much choice in those transactions as they do in transactions with big bots. It's not like these pack to power people can install some virus on your computer to take your cards or do harm to you if you do not accept their rip-off trade. I'm sure the worst that can happen is that you cancel on them, you receive some naughty words from them and you block them. It's not really a big deal and much easier to refuse than a real life trade, where someone really big or with a weapon COULD possibly harm you or coerce you into a transaction you don't want to do.
Let's use your chip example. The supermarket is like the big bot, and a random person on the street is your scam artist. The random person can go in the supermarket and buy a stock of chips and then try to sell them to passerbys on the street for a mark-up. It may be an unethical thing for this person to do. Everybody has a different buy price... (and everyone a different sell price). Some people are willing to buy higher than others, but the higher the price, the fewer people there are that would accept it. What these scam artists do is just find the people who have a higher buy price. The bots sell at a 'market price' and try to get the most efficient profit margin (less profit per transaction but the most profit overall - profit per transaction * number of transactions).
As for the people who buy in bulk (speculators), I think it's only wrong for stuff that isn't in print and has a very limited print run (ahem, duals). I think those people who hoard hundreds of duals are MUCH worse than these people trying to pack to power. People speculate with stocks all the time... call it unethical. As for the insider trading... it isn't like stocks, man. I'm sure you can dig up information on spoiled cards on the internet if you search well enough.
It's your right to state that these people are immoral (I don't think it's exactly great, either). But if you're going to try to rationalize it and try to make your argument more 'objective' (trying to declare it as something stronger than an opinion, aka being persuasive), then please use more logic...
(Call me a troll if you want, but at least debate me fairly and logically. That's all I ask.)
RE2: Most donations are given to me, sometimes you won't find me online until the next event as we keep missing each other. You can also give them to Nagarjuna if you see him or HoffeFin and I'm sure they wouldn't mind handing off a donation and telling me who gave it.
The Heirloom Legal Card list (http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2008&sid=10c2228d4b4466ac...) is static and only changes at preplanned times as card's legalities are revised for the cost they carry at that time. The next planned revisions will occur 1,2 and 3 weeks after the release date of Scars of Mirrodin on MTGO (not from the prerelease) just for SOM printed cards. Then a month after the release date a full revision of the Heirloom Legal Card List will occur. Until card's legality is revised they are illegal or legal based on their presence on the official list and not their current price.
I see two ways to go with heirloom hypergenesis, either put down sufficient haste damage to kill straight away, or put down a together essentially unstoppable bunch of cards; such as blazing archon and dovescape. Anyway I think there are better creatures than you are using. The real problem with the deck though is getting to the cascade spell, through bad draw and disruption.
But actually there are plenty of instakill options in heirloom that don't require cutting all spells below 3 mana, that are probably better. Myr incubator is legal for example. Or otherwise spellweaver helix, enduring renewal etc.
Sorry to hear about your downturn. In response to the new "legacy" precons. Well they look pretty ok as a starting base and imho anyone who starts a format and quits after getting roflstomped because they didn't bring a "real" deal was not really interested to begin with. Imho Legacy Online aka Classic Lite is really a very broken format from the little Ive seen but there does seem to be room for innovation so it may be possible to take one or both of these "starters" and actually get the other cards needed to make one or both work reasonably well. At least casually they should stand on their own. I am looking forward to their arrival.
Hey Pete, some thought provoking comments there. I am not entirely sure I could ascribe strict moral standards to a game in general, but I do acknowledge that insomuch as the game entails dealing with money there are definitely lines to cross that determine whether someone is scum or not.
I've blocked a few people for attempting to power pack me. (One guy claimed I wasted his time by refusing to trade my Knights of the Reliquary x4 right before they shot up from .5 per to 5 tix per.) (He also wanted the 4 for cards worth far less than 2 tix.) I knew they would be going up so I refused and he got mad when I canceled the trade. He even got one of his troll friends to join in the harassment. I just shrugged blocked them both and never looked back. It is definitely Caveat Emptor in magic, because there are those whose motto is Carpe Diem at any cost.
On the other hand I know plenty of people who deliberately offer more value than they are getting so it isn't an entirely underhanded proposition. That said I tend to trade with bots more than people and if I am trading with someone it's probably due to an auction not a private conversation. Very rarely I engage in casual trading just for fun with friends. That doesn't happen too often though since most of the time my friends are just not into trading.
I think part of the blame for how trading works online has to fall squarely on the design of the v3 GUI. If it was a little more friendly trades might be more fun and less of a hassle.
By the way I recently discovered the source of one of the common bugs that plagues traders (and I noticed several other people mention this on the mothership but it should be spread about. If you have any filters on at all in your collection and you attempt to deal in anyway with getting or receiving tickets you will get the bug that hides the items you traded for until you relog. I sent in a bug report as soon as I proved it but got 0 response back from WOTC other than the usual boilerplate.
Good article, although I knew everything already. I think the virtual card advantage and quality advantage are 2 different things. The one you wrote about is the quality one. Virtual card advantage is for me when you play or don't play some cards and because of that you make your enemy spells useless. For example you are playing deck without creatures and with this you make all your opponents destroy creature spells sit in the hand.
I really like the way the players pool is growing, but I have a little concern about how fast the format will change and how we players can know which cards are still legal from one week to another.
I've been reading the articles about Heirloom, and i decided to give it a try next week, just built me a couple decks.
I've got some questions:
1- when are the tourneys, are the dates in the forum?
2- who i talk to to donate some cards to prize pool?
Thanks a lot and you can count on my support from now on.
Duress can contribute to "card quality advantage" and "information advantage" and possibly tempo. It's giving you more advantages than just a 1-for-1 card trade would indicate, I'm just saying those other forms of advantage lie in different aspects of the game than "card advantage".
It's like if I traded my friend four quarters he needs for a vending machine for a dollar bill and a piece of fried chicken he had left over. I got a value advantage in the trade. But it's not in "cash advantage", it's in "chicken advantage". I broke even in the cash aspect of trading, while coming ahead in the fried chicken aspect. Duress is even in card advantage plus getting you ahead in other areas.
Damn, everyone went ahead and made all the good points before I had the chance. I will stick my oar in and say that (in my opinion) Caveat Emptor is a more significant rule than you make it sound. Anyone is free to cancel the trade at any time. There's no need to click 'Confirm' unless you're happy, and even then the system gives you a second chance to back out.
If you're fool enough to rely on the person you're trading with to tell you if the trade is fair or not (and the vast majority of casual traders I've interacted with have been honest and reliable), then well... caveat emptor. This is a wider life lesson, and is in no way exclusive to Magic.
"Hello Mr saleman, I'd like to buy your used car. It looks really expensive and rusty, but if you tell me it's just fine, then I'll hand over all my cash and break down fifty yards up the road."
I don't see how the 'value' argument works. Neither will the NYSE, the LSE or any other trading system from the 'real' world. A has something. B wants it. No extra value needs to be added other than A's willingness to let that something go for a price.
I once traded away an Angel of Despair for roughly half of its value because I didn't check my mental prices were up to date. I didn't get angry at the buyer, well done him, he got a bargain. I learnt a lesson though. And that lesson was caveat emptor.
In conclusion, thank you for a thought provoking and interesting article.
Trading online, the way the game was originally intended is dead. The whole "let's trade and see if there is anything you like" type of trade is ridiculously inefficient and a waste of time in most cases. Most traders have a very small list of cards they want.
Most of the outrageous, unethical, take advantage of little kids, type of trading occurs because there are new players who don't know this type of trading is dead, and sharks who are willing and able to take advantage of new players.
I've read Plejades articles and he doesn't do this type of trading. To use your potato chip analogy, he and those like him online, are usually acting as personal grocery shoppers. Bots and big traders are not looking at everybody's individual buy and sell advertisements on the board. Most of us don't have the time to wade through the pages of advertisements that are somewhat poorly managed by the Classifieds board.
I can't help it, sometimes I make myself sound like a magnificent ass. Thanks for looking past that to read my real thoughts on the topic.
You sir are a magnificent gentleman, not a magnificent ass. lol
Doh, my mistake... Ghitu Slinger is a common (and at 10 cents is illegal). =( Sorry to get your hopes up. Maybe Fire Imp will be in MED4. =)
I had a snarky reply here, but decided to delete it after a more thoughtful perusal of you own blog posting, which i found fairly well reasoned and does not make you sound like a magnificent ass. I do think this:
"Maybe, I should stop doing my homework in school and then I can call my classmates unethical swine when they won't give me the answers on the test. They spent their time studying and doing the homework, but I don't care. I can't be bothers to do those things, so obviously I expect that all my hard working classmates will just hand me the answers, right? If they don't give me the answers, they are clearly stealing from me; robbing me of the opportunity for me to pass the test."
Is an absolutely ridiculous and pointless example, and does make you sound like a magnificent ass.
Very recently I think. It has not been legal in the past. What I really want to play with is Fire Imps which cost 3cmc and deal 2. Much better card. But we take what we can get. I will definitely see about getting some slingers now that it is in range. Thanks for the heads up.
At first sight, perhaps at least test replacing Gatekeeper with Skinrender. He's one less black mana as a removal spell, and he's got a beefier body. He can also target creatures you want to target, whereas Gatekeeper gives your opponent a choice. Adding to that, I would also switch Steady Progress for Tainted Strike, at least to test it. My reasoning is that the +1 gives your opponent an extra counter and Tainted Strike works well with Skinrender and may even allow your Birds of Paradise to get in for 1. I realize that the latter is worse than Steady Progress because of proliferate (pretty much guaranteed to add a counter to your opponent's poison status) and also gets you a cantrip; however, it means you are less reliant on a blue source of mana.
Anyway, I'm really interested in seeing if this deck has anything to it. Since RDW seems to have just added 8 mythics (Masti-mcNasty 3.0 and Koth), I don't think I'm going to be able to keep playing red and need a new budget oriented deck for Standard. =)
Hello,
This is Mr. Pack to Power (Jonathan Medina). I just wanted to pop my head in and say "Hi" and of course to share my opinion. Since I don't consider myself an unethical thief. :)
Your article lacked convincing reasons to support your points. For example, you said that you went to school to learn how to create furniture and this adds intangible value to the work that you do. I agree with this, since not everyone has the knowledge that you have. What I don't get is how you can use the value of knowlege to support one claim but disregard it to make your point, that trading for value is unethical.
Knowledge of card prices and trajectory have value, because the require time and resources to acquire. To give this to someone for free should not be mandatory. Do you freely offer your furniture customers lessons in making furniture? Why should I be responsible to educate?
While my trade partner was having a great time, getting drunk and drafting with his friends, I was studying pricing trends and top 8 decklists. Yet, somehow my time is not worth anything to you (nor is my newfound knowledge) instead, I am supposed to use this knowledge to educate the guy who doesn't care enough to check prices for himself?
Maybe, I should stop doing my homework in school and then I can call my classmates unethical swine when they won't give me the answers on the test. They spent their time studying and doing the homework, but I don't care. I can't be bothers to do those things, so obviously I expect that all my hard working classmates will just hand me the answers, right? If they don't give me the answers, they are clearly stealing from me; robbing me of the opportunity for me to pass the test.
Here is my full response to this type of thinking:
http://mtgmetagame.com/the-myth-of-ripping-people-off-tricks-of-the-trade/
Enjoy!
Man, you gotta have balls to play with Eunuchs! ;) Couldn't resist.
I think that highlights one of the limitations of Heirloom. When I saw you included Corrupt Eunuchs I checked out Ghitu Slinger (Despite the echo, I think the increased versatility of Slinger makes it superior to the Eunuchs) on mtgotraders and sure enough it was 10 cents (the legal limit for Heirloom uncommons). Yet, it's not on the list of legal cards, so I guess the price changed recently. =/
I figured it would be review for many players. Your example of virtual advantage is also correct. Like I said in the article, there are many different article referencing this subject and many of them have different ideas. Thanks for reading!
I dont agree with your assumption that the "fair value" of a card can be defined through a "somehow fair market index of a major traders". I agree with you that it is reasonable to use them as indicators for stupid trades though.
I also don't agree with you that the "Pack to Power" are somehow unmoral or unethical. The online market is intransparent and fragemented by design and a major part of the game experience. You can easily prevent bad trades if you just know how to basically play the trade game..
Suggestion how the trade experience could be improved:
- Provide online real price indexes within MTGO based on actuall trades
- Provide online trading tools that are state of the art for online transaction and auctions
- Provide a online currency which can be split up in order to allow "normal" trading of commons. (It could be either virtual currency that can be split however or soemthing like gold tix, silver tix and copper tix similar to other online games)
- Provide online possiblity to show a valuation of the card acccording to some index/price list whatsoever.
=> There are a lot of virtual markets and even games with virtual markets which work way better than the MTGO system. Why not improve MTGO?
=> There will always be player "shark" traders independent of the system.
=> It is a trading card game and trading is most obviously a major playground of the game. Trading IS competitive by intention.
Hello Pete,
interesting article about a sensitive topic. As one of the current evil "Pack to Power" traders at MTGOacademy.com I would like to add my "two tickets" to the discussion as I believe there are a few points that warrant a second look. I do hope that I do not come across as "Troll", but I have to make my point on this clear.
I do NOT believe that you have to make unethical trades to grow collection values and frankly I also don't believe that the "zero sum" theorem is applicable for a trading card game and I am not sure why this theorem is falsely used in so many articles.
Arguments are easy to refute if you show the flaws in the underlying assumptions. So I will state two strong assumptions you are making in your article to support your reasoning and conclusion and try to show that they are debatable (I apologize in advance for my own flaws in grammar and spelling - English is my third language).
Assumptions:
Dealer prices are what mostly defines value of Magic cards and trading Magic cards is a "zero sum game".
Quote: "The flip side, of course, is that this is only possible if his trading partners have lost a lot of money. This sort of trading is a zero sum game. No value has been added in the process. The only thing that has changed is the ownership of the cards."
While you are putting this assumption into perspective with arguments ranging from "added value" from dealers to "trading extras" you are still using it as one of your main pillars to define what is a fair trade. There are many factors that influence value which also makes the economic "zero sum" theorem void. I would actually argue that Magic has a significant enough possibility for "Pareto improvements" to kill the notion of zero sum economy. Let me give two simple examples:
a) I am trading a card "worth" 5.5 tickets for your card "worth" 6 tickets which completes your set you want to redeem.
b) I am trading you 500 commons you need for your decks "worth" 3 tickets for your 2.5 ticket rare. I am happy as I traded up and you are happy because you can finally start building some fun decks you had in mind.
Of course dealers would love everyone to believe that their pricelist in fact IS value but ultimately it's only what a dealer wants for a card or is willing to pay for it - not more and not less. This is especially apparent for low circulation cards which again make it possible to increase value without screwing someone. For example:
You have a promo foil you bought from a bot for 8 tickets that is very hard to get and you sell it a few weeks later to a collector who is happy he finally got the card for 12 tickets from you. I cannot see how anyone here got screwed. The bot, because he valued the card for 8? The happy collector who finally got the card he was looking for?
Of course there are trades that are obviously unethical - trading your Craw Wurm for a kids' Force of Will cannot be put in a perspective that argues with Pareto Improvements or other factors. I just wanted to stress the fact that you can do trades over and over, improve value without wracking havoc doing so. I have and will continue to make trades that provide value for both sides, use free resources that are available to everyone (such as freebots) and find the right buyer who sees the added value you are denying exists for the small seller (quote:"Online, I can hit the MTGOTradersBot and have a very good chance of being able to buy the cards I really want, immediately. That is an added value. However, the traders trying to go "pack to power" don't have the inventory to provide that sort of value.")
What you are missing here is that a small trader can use another resource to compensate for the lack of inventory - time. I am willing to invest time to find the buyer that exactly needs the few cards I have thus providing the same value as a big dealer that according to you has the right to profit.
I am happy to hear more arguments on this, in particular why you believe in the "zero sum" nature of Magic: The Gathering.
Best wishes and happy trading,
Plejades
Hey guys thanks for the comments.
@Feast (love the card reference from Homelands...best art in that set.) Yeah Hypercascade might be the slow way to go when you have a ton of instant kill combos to worry about but it has some kick. I am not ready to completely dismiss it yet. Dovescape might be interesting. I am well aware the list is jank (notice I call it that in the article :p) Hence I did not bring it. But I do think it has untapped potential and I prefer a more controlling approach over rush and hope for the best.
@Lord E - Any time you need something just ask :) Yeah I was impressed with how nasty AJ's deck turned out to be and that was knowing how badass Molten-Tail is.
@Xaos - Thanks!
@Thuh - :D Thanks for posting that, I wish I'd had it before the article to include. I see you added the Sphinges which make the sudden death approach more appealing I think. :)
Hey Paul,
great Article with a lot off interesting decklist for me! To referto the Hypergenesis Deck:
I started with a very aggressive list.
Decklist:
4,Blazing Archon
4,Brimstone Dragon
4,Cinder Marsh
4,Demonic Dread
2,Eldrazi Conscription
1,Gemstone Caverns
4,Hellkite Overlord
4,Hoverguard Sweepers
2,Hypergenesis
1,Kher Keep
4,Magister Sphinx
4,Mogg Hollows
4,Pinecrest Ridge
2,"Razia, Boros Archangel"
2,Rorix Bladewing
2,Shivan Oasis
4,Simian Spirit Guide
4,Urborg Volcano
4,Violent Outburst
Now i added 4xRealm Razer to lock the board. Beside that, a more controlish version lke yours should recover better, i have to try it.
I have to admit that Heirloom is one of the most interesting formats I tried lately. It's really amazing to see the power level of decks that cost even less than $5 to build. Oh and Xaos is doing a great job hosting the events and supporting the format with prizes.
Masticores with Gibbering Descent is awesome.
Very nice banner by the way. I know where to go now if I need to change mine.
LE
I do agree that it isn't morally right to try to do these things to people, but I disagree with your logic.
A single person trading this way is in a way a small dealer. They make profit through exchanging cards. You say that these crafty traders are knowingly ripping people off. A large scale dealer is knowingly ripping people off, too. The difference is, that because they have a huge inventory of cards that cycle quickly, as well as good advertising (most mtgo players know about these bots), they can afford to rip people off a little bit at a time.
You can argue that the bigger bot chains must adhere more strictly to the 'invisible' market value. This is a good point, and you can see the market influence just by comparing bots. However, these small traders who try to pack to power are also influenced by the market price (just not as much). I'm sure that these people would want to trade their pack straight up for their force of will, but nobody would take that trade. They have to rip people off little by little (more than dealers, but still gradually) to build up to that.
Seriously, with the advent of the internet and smartphones and cheap computers making internet almost omnipresent, it is VERY simple to check market price. Since most people know about bot chains like MTGO Traders, they could just open up a very simple query for the cards in question, or even go on a website like supernovabots that gives prices on a static website in nearly real time (updated every 15 minutes). So either these people don't know about bots, or they don't want to go through the hassle of selling their card to buy the cards they want. In other words, these people may use the 'small trader' for convenience and to save time.
Oh, and really, the person trading to these scam artists have just as much choice in those transactions as they do in transactions with big bots. It's not like these pack to power people can install some virus on your computer to take your cards or do harm to you if you do not accept their rip-off trade. I'm sure the worst that can happen is that you cancel on them, you receive some naughty words from them and you block them. It's not really a big deal and much easier to refuse than a real life trade, where someone really big or with a weapon COULD possibly harm you or coerce you into a transaction you don't want to do.
Let's use your chip example. The supermarket is like the big bot, and a random person on the street is your scam artist. The random person can go in the supermarket and buy a stock of chips and then try to sell them to passerbys on the street for a mark-up. It may be an unethical thing for this person to do. Everybody has a different buy price... (and everyone a different sell price). Some people are willing to buy higher than others, but the higher the price, the fewer people there are that would accept it. What these scam artists do is just find the people who have a higher buy price. The bots sell at a 'market price' and try to get the most efficient profit margin (less profit per transaction but the most profit overall - profit per transaction * number of transactions).
As for the people who buy in bulk (speculators), I think it's only wrong for stuff that isn't in print and has a very limited print run (ahem, duals). I think those people who hoard hundreds of duals are MUCH worse than these people trying to pack to power. People speculate with stocks all the time... call it unethical. As for the insider trading... it isn't like stocks, man. I'm sure you can dig up information on spoiled cards on the internet if you search well enough.
It's your right to state that these people are immoral (I don't think it's exactly great, either). But if you're going to try to rationalize it and try to make your argument more 'objective' (trying to declare it as something stronger than an opinion, aka being persuasive), then please use more logic...
(Call me a troll if you want, but at least debate me fairly and logically. That's all I ask.)
Great article Paul,
Lots of great decklists, and nuanced comments about your various approached to the the player supported formats of MTGO.
I used to be a huge RPG'r myself back in the day,
I'll have more to say when I'm not falling asleep lol,
Nice to see you writing for the site again.
X-
Hey robsonsmith,
Great to have you in the party.
RE 1: The events are always announced here and are held every week on Saturday or Sunday at 11 AM standard pacific time (LA,CA, USA): http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75846/25877457/Heirloom_MTGO...
at least a few days before the event.
RE2: Most donations are given to me, sometimes you won't find me online until the next event as we keep missing each other. You can also give them to Nagarjuna if you see him or HoffeFin and I'm sure they wouldn't mind handing off a donation and telling me who gave it.
The Heirloom Legal Card list (http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2008&sid=10c2228d4b4466ac...) is static and only changes at preplanned times as card's legalities are revised for the cost they carry at that time. The next planned revisions will occur 1,2 and 3 weeks after the release date of Scars of Mirrodin on MTGO (not from the prerelease) just for SOM printed cards. Then a month after the release date a full revision of the Heirloom Legal Card List will occur. Until card's legality is revised they are illegal or legal based on their presence on the official list and not their current price.
Hope this all helps,
have a good one,
X-
I see two ways to go with heirloom hypergenesis, either put down sufficient haste damage to kill straight away, or put down a together essentially unstoppable bunch of cards; such as blazing archon and dovescape. Anyway I think there are better creatures than you are using. The real problem with the deck though is getting to the cascade spell, through bad draw and disruption.
But actually there are plenty of instakill options in heirloom that don't require cutting all spells below 3 mana, that are probably better. Myr incubator is legal for example. Or otherwise spellweaver helix, enduring renewal etc.
Scards, ftw!!! :) I managed to obtain a few myself. Waiting for prices to fall ever so slightly.
Sorry to hear about your downturn. In response to the new "legacy" precons. Well they look pretty ok as a starting base and imho anyone who starts a format and quits after getting roflstomped because they didn't bring a "real" deal was not really interested to begin with. Imho Legacy Online aka Classic Lite is really a very broken format from the little Ive seen but there does seem to be room for innovation so it may be possible to take one or both of these "starters" and actually get the other cards needed to make one or both work reasonably well. At least casually they should stand on their own. I am looking forward to their arrival.
Hey Pete, some thought provoking comments there. I am not entirely sure I could ascribe strict moral standards to a game in general, but I do acknowledge that insomuch as the game entails dealing with money there are definitely lines to cross that determine whether someone is scum or not.
I've blocked a few people for attempting to power pack me. (One guy claimed I wasted his time by refusing to trade my Knights of the Reliquary x4 right before they shot up from .5 per to 5 tix per.) (He also wanted the 4 for cards worth far less than 2 tix.) I knew they would be going up so I refused and he got mad when I canceled the trade. He even got one of his troll friends to join in the harassment. I just shrugged blocked them both and never looked back. It is definitely Caveat Emptor in magic, because there are those whose motto is Carpe Diem at any cost.
On the other hand I know plenty of people who deliberately offer more value than they are getting so it isn't an entirely underhanded proposition. That said I tend to trade with bots more than people and if I am trading with someone it's probably due to an auction not a private conversation. Very rarely I engage in casual trading just for fun with friends. That doesn't happen too often though since most of the time my friends are just not into trading.
I think part of the blame for how trading works online has to fall squarely on the design of the v3 GUI. If it was a little more friendly trades might be more fun and less of a hassle.
By the way I recently discovered the source of one of the common bugs that plagues traders (and I noticed several other people mention this on the mothership but it should be spread about. If you have any filters on at all in your collection and you attempt to deal in anyway with getting or receiving tickets you will get the bug that hides the items you traded for until you relog. I sent in a bug report as soon as I proved it but got 0 response back from WOTC other than the usual boilerplate.
Good article, although I knew everything already. I think the virtual card advantage and quality advantage are 2 different things. The one you wrote about is the quality one. Virtual card advantage is for me when you play or don't play some cards and because of that you make your enemy spells useless. For example you are playing deck without creatures and with this you make all your opponents destroy creature spells sit in the hand.
I really like the way the players pool is growing, but I have a little concern about how fast the format will change and how we players can know which cards are still legal from one week to another.
I've been reading the articles about Heirloom, and i decided to give it a try next week, just built me a couple decks.
I've got some questions:
1- when are the tourneys, are the dates in the forum?
2- who i talk to to donate some cards to prize pool?
Thanks a lot and you can count on my support from now on.
robsonsmith or Salsa Master in MOL
Duress can contribute to "card quality advantage" and "information advantage" and possibly tempo. It's giving you more advantages than just a 1-for-1 card trade would indicate, I'm just saying those other forms of advantage lie in different aspects of the game than "card advantage".
It's like if I traded my friend four quarters he needs for a vending machine for a dollar bill and a piece of fried chicken he had left over. I got a value advantage in the trade. But it's not in "cash advantage", it's in "chicken advantage". I broke even in the cash aspect of trading, while coming ahead in the fried chicken aspect. Duress is even in card advantage plus getting you ahead in other areas.