When I started playing with my current mtgo account, I first played in the just starting out room, or the just for fun room, because I had hardly any cards. I always said hello, and good luck, and usually my opponents did too.
Then, as time went on, and I built a tier one deck, my games shifted to the tournament practice room. I always said hello and whatnot, but I started to notice my opponents never did. After a while, I have (mostly) stopped as well. If someone does say hello to me, I'll always say a greeting in return.
I wish that I could make groups for my buddies, and put bots in one, and actual friends in another. I've made it a point in the past to add people to my buddy list who were nice to me, and decent to play with. It would be really cool to seek these people out easily to play test.
One time, someone I had added to my buddy list had sought me out to play test against his new deck, and I had no clue who he was. His name had been lost in a sea of bots and people I'd split a 8-4 draft with or whatever.
I am going to make it a point to communicate in a positive manner with people I play against. Lately, I've been getting more tilted that usual when I lose. I feel like that it's easier to get angry at a meaningless name on a screen than a real person you've interacted with. That's my personal quest to be a better person.
I wish they could find a way to get Energy Tap online. I thought Vintage Masters was their best chance to make it happen. Sadly, they chose not to put it into that set.
I also wish for the missing cards to come online at some point, but I'm afraid your Junk Diver set, albeit theoretically charming, isn't really viable. Think about it, 99% of the missing cards are just awful, awful trash. Probably 75% is just vanilla or semi-vanilla stuff from Portal sets. They would make for just too terrible an environment, no meaningful interactions, no archetypes, no fun at all. Nobody would actually draft it, with the result that Pixie Queen would become a $15 rare just because there would be, like, 20 of them in the system. Hell, nobody even drafted Masques, despite the hot stuff in there, because the Limited environment gave everyone nightmares.
And WotC became pretty great at designing Limited environments in these years. Conspiracy, MMA, VMA, even the regular blocks, they're all brilliant designs that work like gangbusters in Limited. They won't willingly ruin their reputation with an unwinnable design. Ferrari doesn't produce a line of crappy cars only because there's some scraps of metal laying around the factory. They would need to dilute the still 500 or 600 missing cards (remember caliban's series?) across several different special sets with many reprints designed to create an enjoyable environment. It seems too much trouble for Barbarian Guides and Sengir Bats. But I don't honestly know how they could do it. Giving them as activity promos, 5 per month, for like the next 10 years?
I started my current account just under a year ago, and I've looked forward to reading this article each week. It was one of the first things I read when I started playing online again.
Well, it doesn't really work like that - when you buy event tickets, wotc gains a certain amount of money from you, but tickets enter the system. Let's say you buy a card for three event tickets from a bot. Then let's say I sell some cards for three event tickets to that bot and then use those tickets to enter an event. The net gain to wotc is the same as if I would use my own money to pay for tix I used to enter the event. The only possible gain for wotc is that in lot of cases they receive money long before the tix are used to enter an event.
I may be wrong in saying this, but it seems to me that with magic online, WOTC DOES make money on the secondary market, albeit indirectly.
I buy all my singles with event tickets, and I'm sure that many other people do the same. All of those tix originated in the WOTC store. With vintage masters, it looks like a lot of people sold cards from their collection to raise up tix for vintage staples such as the power nine. However, I'd bet that a lot of tickets were also purchased from the store as well.
Imagine if in paper magic, to buy singles, you had to use a WOTC-issued credit card or something, that's sort of like how it is with MTGO. We all use their banking system, and their stock exchange, so to speak.
I was actually using a deck maker by jamuraa. The deck looks good in preview but when i save it for submission it comes out as in the article. I sure will try to explain the card choices next time but I might only show a couple of decks or one of the four decks would have the card choices explanation. It took me 3 weeks to edit this one because of time constraint irl but i sure will try to make the next article a better one.
Thank You for the comment.. I would also love it if you can make a comment on my commentary trial on the Akroan deck...
If WotC isn't concerned with the cost of singles in a special set like MM2, they should be. Nobody is going to pay $10 a pack for a set with the EV of Homelands. In order for for it to be successful, they need to include a lot of high value cards.
Also, keep in mind that Modern is supposed to be the "affordable" eternal format. As it stands now, with an average* deck price of roughly $640 and the most popular deck sitting at about $450 in paper, they are succeeding on that front. Keep in mind, though, that a large part of the affordability of the format hinges on Treasure Cruise's legality. In the likely event that they ban that card, one of the cheapest decks becomes far less competitive and the GBx attrition decks centered around 4x Tarmogoyf and 4x Liliana of the Veil will regain popularity causing the cost to soar out of the realm of affordable for new players unless there is enough new supply to satiate the increased demand. Basically, if they want to attract new players to Modern, they need to be conscious of the secondary market when developing Modern Masters sets.
*The $620 is a weighted average using data pulled from mtggoldfish.com. I included all decks with 5 or more entries, multiplying their cost by the number of that specific deck over the total number of decks to get a weighted cost, then adding all of those together.
...and Tamiyo as one of your Blue rares and Restoration Angel under your White uncommons. You're drownin' in AVR. :)
Walkers could be at Rare and the set could be designed to handle them, but I don't know if Cube is the best example for that. Cubes are usually pretty strong in general and MMA2015 will probably wind up with weak and strong cards like the first one did.
For what it's worth, I think Restoration Angel at uncommon and Entreat at Rare would probably be a scarier environment than Walkers at Rare. hehehe.
I went through and took out all the Innistrad and DKA, but somehow managed to miss the AVR -- one mythic and two white rares already wrong. Sigh.
As to your point about multiple walkers at rare being 'horrid'... don't knock it until you've tried it. As someone who has played a lot of cube with many available walkers, it is hardly broken when you have a high number of rare, uncommon, and common solutions for walkers. If you look at my uncommons and rares closed, something like 10% (20+ cards) can successfully deal with a walker... either by straight destroy like Maelstrom Pulse, Bramblecrush, and Vampire Hexmage, take control of it like Commandeer and Confiscate, or even shuffle it into the library or remove it from the game (Brutalizer Exach and Oblivion Ring). I actually think this version of MM2 would be a DIFFERENT draft environment, which makes it interesting, and therefore fun. Especially with all the pingers at red common.
But hey, I'm looking forward to reading your article. I think speculating about MM2 is fun.
The sets included are Zendikar, Mirrodin, Ravnica, Lorwyn, Kamigawa, and Alara. I think the Zenikar creature lands will return. It won't be the fetch lands because I think they are going to be released in Fate Reforged or Dragons of Takir.
Remember that wizards isn't concerned with lowering the costs of the singles since they don't actually deal in singles; they have to make a workable set that people want to draft. I think you'll see a lot from the tribes in this one (elves, goblins, knights?, vamps, merfolk?) to even out the set.
Well, none of the Avacyn Restored cards can be in the set, so you can't get those ones right.
Dark Depths is banned, and as I mentioned in my article on the Banned list at the end of last year, Thespian's Stage is probably a strong sign that they don't intend to unban it anytime soon.
Regardless of the monetary value of a Planeswalker, they still won't print them below Mythic. Ok, I shouldn't say "never", but they haven't made any indicatin of changing that policy yet. Having multiple Walkers at Rare could also lead to a horrid draft environment.
There were some other fun choices in there. I'm working on my own MMA2015 article that will probably go up the beginning of next year. We have some of the same picks, but I disagree about some of your points as well, so it's nice to know that my article won't be too similar to yours.
Thanks for the less rant more enthusiasm. Much appreciated. And AJ you get a pass for tribal being dear to your heart and since you don't do it very often.
By the way, they may have "fixed up" the site, but WOTC's "Woops" error message gets tired fast when trying to log in.
Great article as always! I play Pod religiously and refused to accept the death of Pod when UR Delver started to dominate. Even with Jeskai combo decks taking the forefront, Pod is still there chugging along putting up results. Your point about playing what you know, as long as it's based on something solid and not transitional is good advice.
People said Scapeshift was dead and a 'Risky Choice' a while back, but it's still there and has gained a following.
Jund isn't going away either. The fact remains that well built decks will not disappear after a few cards seem to make a splash. Players need to know that in any match up of two Modern decks with some solid history behind them, if you draw better than your opponent and make fewer mistakes, you're most likely going to win no matter what the match up is.
The 'Best Deck' is a mirage. I prefer categorizing decks in Tiers. Tier 1 isn't the 'best' decks. It's the most consistent and well tested decks. Tier 2 are tested, but can be fussy or draw dead right from the jump. I see Tier 3 as niche decks that can run off some wins if they get hot. Fringe decks are untested and therefore unknown. They may be good they may be bad.
Great Stuff.
Happy New Year's
Nice article.
When I started playing with my current mtgo account, I first played in the just starting out room, or the just for fun room, because I had hardly any cards. I always said hello, and good luck, and usually my opponents did too.
Then, as time went on, and I built a tier one deck, my games shifted to the tournament practice room. I always said hello and whatnot, but I started to notice my opponents never did. After a while, I have (mostly) stopped as well. If someone does say hello to me, I'll always say a greeting in return.
I wish that I could make groups for my buddies, and put bots in one, and actual friends in another. I've made it a point in the past to add people to my buddy list who were nice to me, and decent to play with. It would be really cool to seek these people out easily to play test.
One time, someone I had added to my buddy list had sought me out to play test against his new deck, and I had no clue who he was. His name had been lost in a sea of bots and people I'd split a 8-4 draft with or whatever.
I am going to make it a point to communicate in a positive manner with people I play against. Lately, I've been getting more tilted that usual when I lose. I feel like that it's easier to get angry at a meaningless name on a screen than a real person you've interacted with. That's my personal quest to be a better person.
Great year! Thanks for doing this week after week. Something I always look forward to each Friday.
I wish they could find a way to get Energy Tap online. I thought Vintage Masters was their best chance to make it happen. Sadly, they chose not to put it into that set.
I also wish for the missing cards to come online at some point, but I'm afraid your Junk Diver set, albeit theoretically charming, isn't really viable. Think about it, 99% of the missing cards are just awful, awful trash. Probably 75% is just vanilla or semi-vanilla stuff from Portal sets. They would make for just too terrible an environment, no meaningful interactions, no archetypes, no fun at all. Nobody would actually draft it, with the result that Pixie Queen would become a $15 rare just because there would be, like, 20 of them in the system. Hell, nobody even drafted Masques, despite the hot stuff in there, because the Limited environment gave everyone nightmares.
And WotC became pretty great at designing Limited environments in these years. Conspiracy, MMA, VMA, even the regular blocks, they're all brilliant designs that work like gangbusters in Limited. They won't willingly ruin their reputation with an unwinnable design. Ferrari doesn't produce a line of crappy cars only because there's some scraps of metal laying around the factory. They would need to dilute the still 500 or 600 missing cards (remember caliban's series?) across several different special sets with many reprints designed to create an enjoyable environment. It seems too much trouble for Barbarian Guides and Sengir Bats. But I don't honestly know how they could do it. Giving them as activity promos, 5 per month, for like the next 10 years?
Hey, BD! Thanks for the shout-out!
Glad to see you back, hope you'll be able to play in TribAp one of these days, too!
It was a crazy year.
I started my current account just under a year ago, and I've looked forward to reading this article each week. It was one of the first things I read when I started playing online again.
Nice work :)
Well, it doesn't really work like that - when you buy event tickets, wotc gains a certain amount of money from you, but tickets enter the system. Let's say you buy a card for three event tickets from a bot. Then let's say I sell some cards for three event tickets to that bot and then use those tickets to enter an event. The net gain to wotc is the same as if I would use my own money to pay for tix I used to enter the event. The only possible gain for wotc is that in lot of cases they receive money long before the tix are used to enter an event.
more cowbell.
What are your thoughts on Avatar of Slaughter? Too dangerous, or value town?
Always appreciate positive comments! Glad you liked it.
Nice article once again and thanks for the shout out.
I may be wrong in saying this, but it seems to me that with magic online, WOTC DOES make money on the secondary market, albeit indirectly.
I buy all my singles with event tickets, and I'm sure that many other people do the same. All of those tix originated in the WOTC store. With vintage masters, it looks like a lot of people sold cards from their collection to raise up tix for vintage staples such as the power nine. However, I'd bet that a lot of tickets were also purchased from the store as well.
Imagine if in paper magic, to buy singles, you had to use a WOTC-issued credit card or something, that's sort of like how it is with MTGO. We all use their banking system, and their stock exchange, so to speak.
I was actually using a deck maker by jamuraa. The deck looks good in preview but when i save it for submission it comes out as in the article. I sure will try to explain the card choices next time but I might only show a couple of decks or one of the four decks would have the card choices explanation. It took me 3 weeks to edit this one because of time constraint irl but i sure will try to make the next article a better one.
Thank You for the comment.. I would also love it if you can make a comment on my commentary trial on the Akroan deck...
If WotC isn't concerned with the cost of singles in a special set like MM2, they should be. Nobody is going to pay $10 a pack for a set with the EV of Homelands. In order for for it to be successful, they need to include a lot of high value cards.
Also, keep in mind that Modern is supposed to be the "affordable" eternal format. As it stands now, with an average* deck price of roughly $640 and the most popular deck sitting at about $450 in paper, they are succeeding on that front. Keep in mind, though, that a large part of the affordability of the format hinges on Treasure Cruise's legality. In the likely event that they ban that card, one of the cheapest decks becomes far less competitive and the GBx attrition decks centered around 4x Tarmogoyf and 4x Liliana of the Veil will regain popularity causing the cost to soar out of the realm of affordable for new players unless there is enough new supply to satiate the increased demand. Basically, if they want to attract new players to Modern, they need to be conscious of the secondary market when developing Modern Masters sets.
*The $620 is a weighted average using data pulled from mtggoldfish.com. I included all decks with 5 or more entries, multiplying their cost by the number of that specific deck over the total number of decks to get a weighted cost, then adding all of those together.
...and Tamiyo as one of your Blue rares and Restoration Angel under your White uncommons. You're drownin' in AVR. :)
Walkers could be at Rare and the set could be designed to handle them, but I don't know if Cube is the best example for that. Cubes are usually pretty strong in general and MMA2015 will probably wind up with weak and strong cards like the first one did.
For what it's worth, I think Restoration Angel at uncommon and Entreat at Rare would probably be a scarier environment than Walkers at Rare. hehehe.
I went through and took out all the Innistrad and DKA, but somehow managed to miss the AVR -- one mythic and two white rares already wrong. Sigh.
As to your point about multiple walkers at rare being 'horrid'... don't knock it until you've tried it. As someone who has played a lot of cube with many available walkers, it is hardly broken when you have a high number of rare, uncommon, and common solutions for walkers. If you look at my uncommons and rares closed, something like 10% (20+ cards) can successfully deal with a walker... either by straight destroy like Maelstrom Pulse, Bramblecrush, and Vampire Hexmage, take control of it like Commandeer and Confiscate, or even shuffle it into the library or remove it from the game (Brutalizer Exach and Oblivion Ring). I actually think this version of MM2 would be a DIFFERENT draft environment, which makes it interesting, and therefore fun. Especially with all the pingers at red common.
But hey, I'm looking forward to reading your article. I think speculating about MM2 is fun.
The sets included are Zendikar, Mirrodin, Ravnica, Lorwyn, Kamigawa, and Alara. I think the Zenikar creature lands will return. It won't be the fetch lands because I think they are going to be released in Fate Reforged or Dragons of Takir.
Remember that wizards isn't concerned with lowering the costs of the singles since they don't actually deal in singles; they have to make a workable set that people want to draft. I think you'll see a lot from the tribes in this one (elves, goblins, knights?, vamps, merfolk?) to even out the set.
Good read though
Well, none of the Avacyn Restored cards can be in the set, so you can't get those ones right.
Dark Depths is banned, and as I mentioned in my article on the Banned list at the end of last year, Thespian's Stage is probably a strong sign that they don't intend to unban it anytime soon.
Regardless of the monetary value of a Planeswalker, they still won't print them below Mythic. Ok, I shouldn't say "never", but they haven't made any indicatin of changing that policy yet. Having multiple Walkers at Rare could also lead to a horrid draft environment.
There were some other fun choices in there. I'm working on my own MMA2015 article that will probably go up the beginning of next year. We have some of the same picks, but I disagree about some of your points as well, so it's nice to know that my article won't be too similar to yours.
You'd be welcome! :)
Maybe I can take a vacation day and play sometime :)
Thanks for the kind words! I appreciate it a lot.
I still get technical difficulty messages. I'm not going back to the site in the near future.
Thanks for the less rant more enthusiasm. Much appreciated. And AJ you get a pass for tribal being dear to your heart and since you don't do it very often.
By the way, they may have "fixed up" the site, but WOTC's "Woops" error message gets tired fast when trying to log in.
Great article as always! I play Pod religiously and refused to accept the death of Pod when UR Delver started to dominate. Even with Jeskai combo decks taking the forefront, Pod is still there chugging along putting up results. Your point about playing what you know, as long as it's based on something solid and not transitional is good advice.
People said Scapeshift was dead and a 'Risky Choice' a while back, but it's still there and has gained a following.
Jund isn't going away either. The fact remains that well built decks will not disappear after a few cards seem to make a splash. Players need to know that in any match up of two Modern decks with some solid history behind them, if you draw better than your opponent and make fewer mistakes, you're most likely going to win no matter what the match up is.
The 'Best Deck' is a mirage. I prefer categorizing decks in Tiers. Tier 1 isn't the 'best' decks. It's the most consistent and well tested decks. Tier 2 are tested, but can be fussy or draw dead right from the jump. I see Tier 3 as niche decks that can run off some wins if they get hot. Fringe decks are untested and therefore unknown. They may be good they may be bad.
Anyways, rambling again! Great job as usual!