The card I had in mind is Channel from FTV Exiled, its online as a mythic and under a dollar but banned in legacy.
To be honest I'm going to be giving the format a miss until there is a defined list of cards that are playable as its just too hard making a deck without this.
The thing with speculators. You can't really blame them.
The successful ones are annoying when they're making money without contributing anything to society. But then that's the economic system we continue to support/tolerate/love/can't do a darn thing individually about.
I'll agree that we could and should adapt our economic system to favor profit derived from actual contribution to the community instead of any old way people can figure out how to jigger society to take without giving. Again however I won't blame the speculators for taking advantage of whatever opportunities they can to do as well the next guy.
If a dealer sells all of their say as this is the current example Renegade Doppelgangers to a buyer then they are making a profit which at the end of the day is the idea of having a shop.
The whole idea of running a shop by selling collectible items is a risk as you have to keep up with the current market 100% of the time. In the world of Magic its easier than most as you can spot trends on MTGO before the paper players start buying so you have a small amount of time to adjust your prices.
Speculators will buy from online stores and sell on ebay as its a bigger market and they will make about 50% on the cards they buy if they are on the ball. The other thing is they could be buying for a group of players and in that case dropping to 8 cards means they will only be able to buy 2 play sets.
Restricting to 8 cards will stop some speculators but it means you wont make as much money from that person in the future as they will buy from other sites instead.
A point hammy made is that its not easy to turn paper cards round as fast as online but this isn't true its just timing from purchase to sale.
Cards that are banned in legacy are "naturally" banned in Heirloom because their sale price is high not because of any explicit card banning in Heirloom.
Sorry for any confusion.
Cards are only banned in Heirloom because A) the cost more that the cap for any version of the card on MTGO, B) they are not from a legal MTGO released set. (so that doesn't include premium sets and premade decks ect or promos).
" It's a Casual Competitive format on mtgo though you can play it offline as well. It is usually classic though I've seen people play standard and extended versions as well"
So the format is classic I'm guessing and then in one of your comments you said
"The cards that are banned in legacy or pauper (is there a banned list for pauper?) are naturally banned in Heirloom"
The only way to limit people with our software currently is to only show XX amount of cards which would also limit the number of boosters/lands/dice/etc they can buy at once which would be a bad thing.
8 sounds reasonable. I am probably least impacted by any of this as I rarely ever want to buy even 4 of any single card. But it does seem an unfair burden to place on the market when someone comes along and basically cleans it out.
My question is who do speculators benefit? They add just another middle man to the whole process. While what they are doing is fine and perfectly legal I do not think dealers should have to bend over for them if they do not wish to. Our new policy is we allow them to buy 8x of any card which allows us to keep those key cards in stock while still allowing them to get a few extra to possible profit on. Cards would not have such crazy jumps in price if there were only players and not speculators. Speculators add an extra padding in price to every card that is moving up in price and they remove a lot of cards from inventory which makes it harder for the dealers to keep cards in stock and forces players to possible buy singles from ebay. I know my view on this is very biased but I enjoy conversations about the MTG/MTGO market and I appreciate any well thought our response or viewpoint.
Absolutely but in terms of work (coding), I look for effectiveness and value and annoyance plays a negative role in those. As I said the js part is simple logic, that pretty much anyone can write. Interfacing with the data tables mtgotraders uses might not be. Nor might it even be possible so you have to scrape each page which is more than simply annoying.
I have played enough games where someone is making other draw cards and you end up with too many cards in hand and need to discard. A lot of times I see players play a Spell book of something simular to keep thier extra cards. Tower is better then spell book.
Boseiju helps for spells that need to get through. If you need to play a spell like Plague Wind, or wrath of god and you know someone is playing a counter deck, the Boseiju gurantess it gets through. There are some people including myself that will run a few counterspells to stop the game changing spells. The only way to stop the counters is to have your own counters or use Boseiju.
It's definitely worth throwing in Reliquary Tower just so you don't have to discard after a good draw spell. It also doesn't hinder mana development much. Usually I have enough sources of colored mana that colorless mana is just fine. And it doesn't enter the battlefield tapped so it won't slow down your tempo like a lot of other non-basic lands.
The first does like you said. They attempt to read trends and make a profit by buying low and selling high. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
The second finds a rare but popular card and buys enough copies of that card in order to further limit availability. By reducing supply they artificially increase the scarcity of the card driving up the price. Once that's done they offload all their copies at the higher price flooding the marketplace and having price fall once again. While legal (at least within MTG) I don't think this is right.
It's a shame both types of speculation get lumped together and the second taints the first.
I love and agree with everything you have to say heh. Your appraisal of how card legalities will work in reality seems pretty accurate. I'm not a javascript writer atm, maybe I can figure it out and maintain the list with a little research.
Hope to see you across the battleground sometime =P.
Most of the worst offenders are already banned because even though they're legal in no real format they are still loved by casual players. Let me know if you find something of particular concern. Of course one of the intentions of the ban system is that the unbalanced cards will become banned eventually by secondary market effects. I would hesitate to support any none price related banning but then maybe theres some card or deck im unaware of atm.
Great to have you on MTGO. Happy to hear that you like the format. You can always play me if no one else is around (Xaoslegend on MTGO) and I can direct you to a few other folks online as well.
The cards that are banned in legacy or pauper (is there a banned list for pauper?) are naturally banned in Heirloom as they're above the value cutoff for their rarity. (skullclamp is $0.65 at it's cheapest at uncommon, cranial plating $0.50 at its cheapest at rare)
The tower shows it's worth when you end up drawing cards off of Mind's Eye following a Decree of Pain etc. There are enough reasons to run it that people just toss it in as a nonland.
Rather than dissing the format, decrying it's unviability (not sure that's a word), I think people people have to accept that having a budget friendly format that plays like normal magic is going to take a little more effort than normal. To ensure that a format is always cheap to enter means you have to base it on a price list. It's unfortunate but there is no other way. The organisers have done the right thing in choosing a single and maintained list to base the format on but the card pool will always be somewhat less stable than your more regular formats. You can't have a permanently cheap to enter format and a perfectly stable card pool. It'd be like having your cake and eating it.
I really do think that there's a need for a "budget" format that plays with the whole range of magic. The price for some cards these days is ridiculous and even pauper isn't that cheap. And while Pauper, arguably the cheapest supported format,is entertaining it just doesn't play like normal magic. Think it does? Just look at the amount of true mass removal in the format - Crypt rats, Pestilence, rolling thunder at a push, decaying ruin for small things with the same name. How about reanimation? Exhume and Unearth. And don't get me started about actual valid reanimation targets either. There are whole archetypes that are complete non-starters in pauper. And while I admit that Heirloom isn't going to feel like full-blown magic either, what the Heirloom format will feel like is a competitive game in the casual room. And personally, I really like this idea.
You know, while the primary appeal of this format is that it WILL cost less, always, its perceived drawback, namely the deckbuilding based on a fluctuating card pool, could actually be interpretted as a strength. Just think! The card pool isn't ever going to be stale! Just a little something extra for your cogitation there.
Finally, I think you're all a little too worried about decks becoming out of date. I suspect that in general the only time cards will leave the format is if a) the cards are from a new set where the prices aren't stable yet (easily handled, have a settling period before introducing a new set to the card pool), or b) a card suddenly finds a home in a viable rogue tournament deck (you should be able to keep an eye out for this in general too). Barring those two scenarios I just don't see the cards exiting the card pool very often. What's more likely is that the card pool'll increase as prices continue to drop with a lack of interest and this certainly won't invalidate any of your decks.
Still I concede that the deckbuild could be made a little easier. What you need is someone with a little javascript coding experience to knock up a simple webapp that takes a deck from the MTGO client in .txt format and compares it to a maintained list of valid cards. A list of any cards not on the list can be returned to the user and the deck can be vetted as valid or invalid based on whether any such cards are found. People can then build a deck and then validate it in the webapp once a month to see if anythings changed. All you'd need then is a website to host it and someone prepared to update the list every month or whenever.
The card I had in mind is Channel from FTV Exiled, its online as a mythic and under a dollar but banned in legacy.
To be honest I'm going to be giving the format a miss until there is a defined list of cards that are playable as its just too hard making a deck without this.
Hey Hamtastic and Erik,
The thing with speculators. You can't really blame them.
The successful ones are annoying when they're making money without contributing anything to society. But then that's the economic system we continue to support/tolerate/love/can't do a darn thing individually about.
I'll agree that we could and should adapt our economic system to favor profit derived from actual contribution to the community instead of any old way people can figure out how to jigger society to take without giving. Again however I won't blame the speculators for taking advantage of whatever opportunities they can to do as well the next guy.
It is a highly imperfect world.
Xaoslegend-
If a dealer sells all of their say as this is the current example Renegade Doppelgangers to a buyer then they are making a profit which at the end of the day is the idea of having a shop.
The whole idea of running a shop by selling collectible items is a risk as you have to keep up with the current market 100% of the time. In the world of Magic its easier than most as you can spot trends on MTGO before the paper players start buying so you have a small amount of time to adjust your prices.
Speculators will buy from online stores and sell on ebay as its a bigger market and they will make about 50% on the cards they buy if they are on the ball. The other thing is they could be buying for a group of players and in that case dropping to 8 cards means they will only be able to buy 2 play sets.
Restricting to 8 cards will stop some speculators but it means you wont make as much money from that person in the future as they will buy from other sites instead.
A point hammy made is that its not easy to turn paper cards round as fast as online but this isn't true its just timing from purchase to sale.
Ya,
I'm pretty ignorant about Java Script issues beyond some simple signature stuff and cut and paste embedding. (mostly just what's in the article)
Xaoslegend-
Hey Flippers_Girraffe,
Cards that are banned in legacy are "naturally" banned in Heirloom because their sale price is high not because of any explicit card banning in Heirloom.
Sorry for any confusion.
Cards are only banned in Heirloom because A) the cost more that the cap for any version of the card on MTGO, B) they are not from a legal MTGO released set. (so that doesn't include premium sets and premade decks ect or promos).
Xaoslegend-
Well I'm not better than that, so just give me the word XD
In the article you said
" It's a Casual Competitive format on mtgo though you can play it offline as well. It is usually classic though I've seen people play standard and extended versions as well"
So the format is classic I'm guessing and then in one of your comments you said
"The cards that are banned in legacy or pauper (is there a banned list for pauper?) are naturally banned in Heirloom"
So it's not Classic but Legacy?
It makes quite a bit of difference.
How was this guy able to buy 20 if the cap is 8 anyways?
Heath,
Maybe you should limit the number of cards from 8 to 4.
8 sounds reasonable. I am probably least impacted by any of this as I rarely ever want to buy even 4 of any single card. But it does seem an unfair burden to place on the market when someone comes along and basically cleans it out.
Absolutely but in terms of work (coding), I look for effectiveness and value and annoyance plays a negative role in those. As I said the js part is simple logic, that pretty much anyone can write. Interfacing with the data tables mtgotraders uses might not be. Nor might it even be possible so you have to scrape each page which is more than simply annoying.
I have played enough games where someone is making other draw cards and you end up with too many cards in hand and need to discard. A lot of times I see players play a Spell book of something simular to keep thier extra cards. Tower is better then spell book.
Boseiju helps for spells that need to get through. If you need to play a spell like Plague Wind, or wrath of god and you know someone is playing a counter deck, the Boseiju gurantess it gets through. There are some people including myself that will run a few counterspells to stop the game changing spells. The only way to stop the counters is to have your own counters or use Boseiju.
Im not bald either. And I have been married for 3 years now. I will refrain from insulting you. Im much better then that.
It's definitely worth throwing in Reliquary Tower just so you don't have to discard after a good draw spell. It also doesn't hinder mana development much. Usually I have enough sources of colored mana that colorless mana is just fine. And it doesn't enter the battlefield tapped so it won't slow down your tempo like a lot of other non-basic lands.
I divide speculators into two camp.
The first does like you said. They attempt to read trends and make a profit by buying low and selling high. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
The second finds a rare but popular card and buys enough copies of that card in order to further limit availability. By reducing supply they artificially increase the scarcity of the card driving up the price. Once that's done they offload all their copies at the higher price flooding the marketplace and having price fall once again. While legal (at least within MTG) I don't think this is right.
It's a shame both types of speculation get lumped together and the second taints the first.
Paul,
Nothing that's really worth doing is easy. And people are generally stronger than they think they are. ;).
Xaoslegend-
Salutations Orgion,
I love and agree with everything you have to say heh. Your appraisal of how card legalities will work in reality seems pretty accurate. I'm not a javascript writer atm, maybe I can figure it out and maintain the list with a little research.
Hope to see you across the battleground sometime =P.
Xaoslegend-
Hey Nagarjuna,
Most of the worst offenders are already banned because even though they're legal in no real format they are still loved by casual players. Let me know if you find something of particular concern. Of course one of the intentions of the ban system is that the unbalanced cards will become banned eventually by secondary market effects. I would hesitate to support any none price related banning but then maybe theres some card or deck im unaware of atm.
Xaoslegend-
Hey Feastoftheunicotn,
Great to have you on MTGO. Happy to hear that you like the format. You can always play me if no one else is around (Xaoslegend on MTGO) and I can direct you to a few other folks online as well.
The cards that are banned in legacy or pauper (is there a banned list for pauper?) are naturally banned in Heirloom as they're above the value cutoff for their rarity. (skullclamp is $0.65 at it's cheapest at uncommon, cranial plating $0.50 at its cheapest at rare)
Xaoslegend-
They were probably taking a tea break. Or perhaps deciding which way to crush you most thoroughly. :p
A simple enough coding task on the js end but the data maintenance part could be annoying.
The tower shows it's worth when you end up drawing cards off of Mind's Eye following a Decree of Pain etc. There are enough reasons to run it that people just toss it in as a nonland.
Rather than dissing the format, decrying it's unviability (not sure that's a word), I think people people have to accept that having a budget friendly format that plays like normal magic is going to take a little more effort than normal. To ensure that a format is always cheap to enter means you have to base it on a price list. It's unfortunate but there is no other way. The organisers have done the right thing in choosing a single and maintained list to base the format on but the card pool will always be somewhat less stable than your more regular formats. You can't have a permanently cheap to enter format and a perfectly stable card pool. It'd be like having your cake and eating it.
I really do think that there's a need for a "budget" format that plays with the whole range of magic. The price for some cards these days is ridiculous and even pauper isn't that cheap. And while Pauper, arguably the cheapest supported format,is entertaining it just doesn't play like normal magic. Think it does? Just look at the amount of true mass removal in the format - Crypt rats, Pestilence, rolling thunder at a push, decaying ruin for small things with the same name. How about reanimation? Exhume and Unearth. And don't get me started about actual valid reanimation targets either. There are whole archetypes that are complete non-starters in pauper. And while I admit that Heirloom isn't going to feel like full-blown magic either, what the Heirloom format will feel like is a competitive game in the casual room. And personally, I really like this idea.
You know, while the primary appeal of this format is that it WILL cost less, always, its perceived drawback, namely the deckbuilding based on a fluctuating card pool, could actually be interpretted as a strength. Just think! The card pool isn't ever going to be stale! Just a little something extra for your cogitation there.
Finally, I think you're all a little too worried about decks becoming out of date. I suspect that in general the only time cards will leave the format is if a) the cards are from a new set where the prices aren't stable yet (easily handled, have a settling period before introducing a new set to the card pool), or b) a card suddenly finds a home in a viable rogue tournament deck (you should be able to keep an eye out for this in general too). Barring those two scenarios I just don't see the cards exiting the card pool very often. What's more likely is that the card pool'll increase as prices continue to drop with a lack of interest and this certainly won't invalidate any of your decks.
Still I concede that the deckbuild could be made a little easier. What you need is someone with a little javascript coding experience to knock up a simple webapp that takes a deck from the MTGO client in .txt format and compares it to a maintained list of valid cards. A list of any cards not on the list can be returned to the user and the deck can be vetted as valid or invalid based on whether any such cards are found. People can then build a deck and then validate it in the webapp once a month to see if anythings changed. All you'd need then is a website to host it and someone prepared to update the list every month or whenever.