RE: Etiquette, I have written a few pieces on that and it is a topic that never goes out of style. Heck my first article on the site (5.5 years ago) was a bit about Magic & Etiquette. Rest assured there are many points of view on it.
When it comes to actual rudeness well that can be handled in a number of ways but typically to save time and effort the offender gets blocked. The preferred method I think would be to reason with the person until an understanding of why they are being like that is reached because it may turn out that they are just venting or have a serious beef with something you did. But if a person is just spewing hate sometimes it's just better to turn off the faucet. Won't fix anything but it will give peace of mind.
As to Tron, your blue tron deck has an anomalous card in Kaijin x3 there. What's the purpose of its inclusion? What do you bring it in against?
I only caught the finals table after Romellos was about to die, so I never really knew what his tribe was or who his commander was. Surprising choice imho, but fitting. I did get to watch Gonzzy pilot AJ's monstrosity to victory after that and every time he played another piece on his way to victory I was like...these guys are not killing him? And they did try. Avacyn + Platinum Angel by themselves held off the hordes. Predator Flagship (a staple in AJ's roster) accounted well for itself. I don't recall all the plays but it was like watching clock work. Tight and inevitable.
Schedule question: What's with the regular event with elves and goblins banned?
Contagion Engine might be a bit better against aggressive strategies than Grim Poppet. Engine also gives Loyalty to Karn if that ends up ever being relevant.
Change to MOCS Promos: The change – you can get more. In the past, if you got 15 or more QPs, you got the promo. Starting next season, you get one copy for every multiple of 15 QPs you earn. Win 30 points, get two; 45 points, get three, etc. Seems like a solid change.
This one is very nice. It avoids making you do 15 QPs in several accounts when you want the card more than you want to play in the MOCS finals.
We are two good buds having a nice discussion on a game we love, all good on that front!
I would caution you in the belief the survey is mostly just vintage and legacy players, that question was multi-pick so many of those people that selected legacy/vintage also selected Commander (love this format and your articles on it). Also the largest single segment reporting results was the 2-5 year group. So I DO think this survey is more representative of the PureMTGO segment than you think, I do not have the unique daily PureMTGO views but I would be gander 118 is a substantial %. But we can add this to the friendly banter, I bet this is very representative to the PureMTGO segment which by the way is a very important segment to WOTC in my book (without their detailed financial analysis at my fingertips).
So where do we go from here? Yes I think v4 was very rocky, yes we lost players, yes there is some resentment and real concerns with the players, I acknowledge this and have felt it myself. But what I can say is IT IS BETTER, v4 has grown on me and even 2hg EDH is fun on v4 TRUST ME! I think WOTC is doubling down on MTGO and poised to improve it based on earnings reports and people need to hold on and retry. Yes WOTC made mistakes and yes we want more, but enjoy what we have - it might be better than you think?
Thanks Paul and I agree with you. I added some color to my reply to Lagrange below regarding participation rates but I will say for me too v4 has gotten much better and is certainly a playable client in my book. Yes it needs fixing and is far from expectations, however, I have actually played A LOT of 2hg EDH games on v4 in the last few weeks and the enjoyment is back (btw the new Teferi is such a beast in 2hg EDH, maybe that is my next article...).
So those out there not giving v4 a chance, I would say give it another chance and you will probably find playing Magic on it fun.
Thanks Lagrange and this was the exact point I was going to make to Paul's comment above. The survey has low participation from a MTGO userbase perspective but my guess it has a high participation rate from the PureMTGO userbase. So at the very least it will help me understand my audience as a writer. I also think that the PureMTGO userbase is an important one for WOTC, we are heavily invested in Magic because we read, write and sell (MTGOTraders is the largest and most well known store brand on MTGO) Magic.
I still don't think we're far apart. I think we're (gently) butting horns on technicalities and the application of some larger principles, not the principles themselves.
Anyway, not "the PureMTGO segment". Your sample is not representative of PureMTGO. There are large communities for Pauper, Heirloom and Commander here. Your sample shows a 62% of Vintage and Legacy players. There's not a lot of Vintage and Legacy articles on PureMTGO, it's just a fact.
So I was actually thinking of your segment as "older, more experienced players who mostly play the classic eternal formats". And just to be clear, I don't think this segment is inherently irrelevant. It has its rights, it should be allowed to make its voice heard, much like everyone else. "Almost meaningless" was a strong choice of words, maybe, but my point was entirely statistical. And I'm pretty sure Wizards can and will take segmented opinions and act on each of them differently. So they might say, "We lost the Vintage players. So be it." Actually, I think they already do give less weight to the Vintage and Legacy players in the Magic world at large than they do the Standard and Limited players. And, you know, rightly so, statistically speaking. Other companies would have probably entirely written off such a segment by now, and retired everything related to it.
I think it's not being appreciated enough the fact that Wizards does try to make everyone happy. It's impossible, and they make a mess of it, but they try, even against reason sometimes. Maybe they should even stop trying, because it gets in the way sometimes, but as a fringe player who makes a fuss about things like the Changeling construction rule still not working, I couldn't ever really wish for that.
My whole point was that your survey is representative of one specific group, yet can be easily misconstrued as representative of a larger segment. And this has nothing to do with you or your choices, it would be true of anybody in the same position. For instance, if I took 100 random people from my buddy list and made them take this same survey, I'd create my own, separate, equally non-representative, equally ultimately meaningless segment, that would give different answers from yours (for instance, it would show, like, 80% preferences to Tribal Wars as the favorite format, which is statistically very deviant).
And I want to clarify that I think you're a great guy (and a great player, to boot), I admire the way you're not taking this exchange as a flame war (which is not meant to be!). And you had all the rights to organize this survey, and you did it well. I question the usefulness of it, not the right to pursue what you thought was useful. After all, if everybody did what they think they should do to make the world a better place, the world WOULD become a better place, mistakes notwithstanding. Well-intentioned action can result in troubles, but it's almost always better than inaction, no?
I think it is a nice survey. The participation is relatively high or at least I dont think you could have hoped for more respondents. I also think the respondents are likely to be a good representation of your readers. So your writing is very much in sync with the opinions of your regular audience.
I dont see much difference in how WotC and you handle feedback. Feedback is a gift. And with some/most of the feedback in the comments you agree to disagree with the people giving the gift of feedback.
I think the biggest problem is the sample size. I am not a statistician nor do I care much for stats beyond the curiosity some stats satiate. I am however pretty sure that 120 (give or take) people isn't even close to a real number for players. The biggest problem is that many of those who have disaffected won't bother to take your survey because they don't care, and for example I didn't take it because, time and honestly I think it is an (albeit interesting) waste of it, because it is reaching a very small audience.
I think you are well intended and your message isn't lost on me but at the same time I think what will be will be with WOTC. They are very hard to convince when it comes to changing their plans unless there is a real money issue at hand.
I personally think there might but since it is indirect (secondary market impacts for the large part), I think WOTC is ignoring it and doesn't take that into consideration when deciding how to proceed with development.
After all they proceeded so far without major mishap. They still have a strong player base and while there is a lot dissent and grumbling they are collecting more players on a daily basis. And as long as that is true I think they wont pay attention to the longer term ramifications.
And eventually the grumbling will die down as people move on. As many have so far. I won't. I am willing and able to use the v4 client such as it is and until I can't I'll continue to play MTGO, write articles for it, and provide what commentary I feel is needed.
I expect WOTC to pay me no more heed than any other player. And for that reason I expect them to largely ignore the existence of this survey. It isn't significant enough for them to bother taking action on. As informative in a casual sense as it may be.
Get a couple thousand players to do it and you may have something more significant to take to them.
Thanks for the comment Casper. I do understand what you mean, that's why I said it is not ideal. I just can't fault someone for wanting to keep a double Rhino hand. In that deck just drawing one of the 2 drops makes that hand much better.
Well I think we are far apart :). I could tell you that if I removed all the vintage votes completely the end result remains largely unchanged and you would just have another reason why the survey is biased or not representative. Ultimately I do not think there is any findings that could persuade you to change your opinions on our current state (don't take this the wrong way, I am just saying you are firm in your belief). Even if I could somehow "magic"ally (pun intended) get you to agree that the survey results are how people look at Magic, you would then say publishing them is hurtful to the game and its growth, so do not unless that is my intentions.
As I previously mentioned, I think this survey's largest benefit to WOTC is if it is contrary to their survey. Let's say their survey shows players love v4 and rate it significantly higher than v3. Or if their survey shows people recommend MTGO over paper Magic to their friends or family (these are just examples). Then if I was president of WOTC I would want to look into these differences and understand them. I would also use this survey in some capacity as ONE item to reference in a business case presentation to Hasbro management. It points to the devotion of their fan base to do this, to the opportunity if they get more resources (they will need a lot more but it is one point) and the urgency. I am not saying use this survey directly in the business case, distill what you can from it to further the case.
Lastly, if management looks at this survey and says the pureMTGO segment is against us so we won't give them priority then we have bigger problems. I do not think they would do this nor do I think it is how this will play out.
For what it's worth, I'm right there with Kumagoro42 on this one. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even make it past the key question.
The responses to question 4 makes it obvious that your sample is completely unrepresentative of the greater MTGO community. Without a representative sample, this can tell us next to nothing about the MTGO community as a whole.
Thanks so much for putting on these tournaments. I have had a blast the few times over been able to play .
Slugapalooza was awesome. I was 4 and 0 when v4 memory leak crashed my game and left me with 5 minutes on my clock. I was down a game, so I had no shot.
Well, the six game run I was on was fun :)
I'm really very sorry that I had to drop out, family issues and all.
Thanks for your hard work organising all these tournaments.
Paul, I didn't mention it directly, but of course the secondary market is a direct consequence of my 3 points: it couldn't exist without those, those couldn't exist without in turn generating a secondary market. Players from point 2 will need cards, and if they don't buy products from the store, then they'll buy from the secondary market. But the cards in the secondary market have been generated from the store to begin with.
A category of players who buy cards from the secondary market yet never play neither competitively nor casually is an irrelevant category for the system. And probably statistically, too: who would ever do that? Collectors? Are there that many people who are exclusively collectors of digital items?
Also, don't take my analysis as the depiction of a perfect system or anything. It's just an assessment of the foundations of reality, meant to disprove the doomsayers' wish-fulfillment fantasies. You see, for some people, in Magic as in many other situations in life, when they don't like some elements of a whole, they'll end up wishing for everything to go to hell. "If I can't have it my way, I'd rather see it destroyed". So they actually start rooting against. They'll see anything as proving their point. Which is an attitude I personally abhor, and will always fight. It's self-defeating, it's not wanting for things to get better, it's wanting for things to get worse, so they will be able to say, "Told ya!"
So, if they tell me, "This is not perfect", I'll agree. If they say, "Here's what they should make it instead", I'll support them. But if they say, "Everything is going to hell", I want proof, not impressions. Those that I described are ways to prove or disprove the health of the MTGO system. More generally, the system being commercial in nature, if it wasn't healthy=productive anymore, it would cease to exist eventually. And we would certainly see signs of a commercial enterprise going to cease to exist. For one, there would be no new projects.
Of course, money doesn't equal happiness, so this commercial product may have a lot of unhappy customers who still remain customers. There's a threshold between remaining customers while unhappy, and deciding to stop supporting the product altogether already. Wizards could probably live out of the vast majority of people who put money into MTGO and don't make all the fuss we're making. But that threshold needs to be carefully considered, and they seem to be doing it. In fact, they honestly look to me like frantic worker bees running around like crazy to make things work. It's just that there's a lot of things to make work in a system like this, and for some reason, Wizards don't put enough worker bees on the job, or maybe not the right ones. But hey, they could do nothing, let fresh new players replace the cranky old ones. A commercially healthy system that also tries to be as much polished as possible has to be appreciated.
I think we're less apart than what you think, Woof. (But maybe we'll disagree about this, too!)
I'm interested in what you think your survey can tell Wizards exactly.
See, we can't disagree that "companies that listen to all their customers and take any and all feedback as a gift" are the most praiseworthy. If I didn't believe this to be the case (and there's actually clear proof of that: suggested changes have been implemented), why would I keep writing articles addressing the fine details of what's wrong with V4?
They'll listen if you tell them, "This function is wrong. This is what would fix it, for this reason". Not sure they really can get something useful out of "There's a number of people who think you suck". Except acknowledging general dissatisfaction, but that, they just have to read their forums to know.
Actually, since they can easily put a label on this particular survey, they might even get it as, "This segment of players is not with us, whatever we'll do. So we can give up trying to appeal to them, focus on the other segments". It's not unheard of for a company to act like that. Since it's impossible to make everyone happy, you give priority to the customers who are closer/more likely to be happy.
I agree with your assessment of every hand but the first. I would mulligan the first hand no matter what, because a Boon Satyr on turn 3 on the draw is awful and you don't have enough time to find your second green source on the play. Otherwise, I think the article was spot on!
I hope they do a more casual league (i.e. I don't have to play hundreds of games to win). I love the game, but don't have time with job and kids, to be putting in that much effort.
Those all sound like good inclusions. My personal experiences in 4-player was yeah you get targeted if you have a fast start and come out the gates swinging. But many times people left me alone if I "just" had Xenagos out and a bunch of lands and others had bigger boards. That's the prime time to play a fattie, take an extra combat step, and win.
"Finally, a word about relevance. If we examine MTGO as a system, the only relevant players are, in order of relevance:..."
This I disagree with.
If it was only those 3 categories that mattered there would be no controversy and no secondary market to worry about.
Those who contribute to the secondary market matter to WOTC though not in the same way. They may purchase tix from the store and thus contribute directly or obtain them from PREs, trading etc but the exchange of cards for tix and tix for cards and packs for tix and packs for cards and so on creates an economy which keeps people buying more tix to spend on buying stuff and playing in events which generate more packs to be bought and opened (either by cracking or by limited events.)
Every interaction has some value to WOTC even if they refuse to acknowledge it. If you wipe out the casual player base the secondary market will collapse to some extent because then the only people buying cards are those who need them for tourney play.
The question is then what is the collective value of the casual player base compared to that of the tourney player base? And a follow up to that is, if the secondary market does collapse or become deflated (as it is leaning to now) where do drafters and sealed deck players sell their cards to perpetuate their drafting/sealed events?
I am pretty sure the answer to those questions weigh pretty heavily on the health of the game.
@Paul - You're right, repeatable life gain is probably best against the burn. Unfortunately, there really isn't a whole lot of lifelink creatures I can turn to. Nyx-Fleece Ram is only 1 life per turn and I think they can race it pretty easily. Seeker of the Way would be perfect if it just naturally had lifelink.
@jorzu - I can see Anger over Arc Lightning. It can get under disdainful stroke from Jeskai Aggro and is a pretty efficient answer to Mono Red and mana dork decks + Hornet Queen. I'll be trying it out tonight. I've gone down to 26 land, but up to 11 red sources (4 Shivan Reef, 4 Monastery, 2 Temple of Triumph, 1 Temple of Epiphany). Also went +1 Nullify, +1 Dig, -1 Devouring Light, -1 Land (Took out the Radiant Fountains).
RE: Etiquette, I have written a few pieces on that and it is a topic that never goes out of style. Heck my first article on the site (5.5 years ago) was a bit about Magic & Etiquette. Rest assured there are many points of view on it.
When it comes to actual rudeness well that can be handled in a number of ways but typically to save time and effort the offender gets blocked. The preferred method I think would be to reason with the person until an understanding of why they are being like that is reached because it may turn out that they are just venting or have a serious beef with something you did. But if a person is just spewing hate sometimes it's just better to turn off the faucet. Won't fix anything but it will give peace of mind.
As to Tron, your blue tron deck has an anomalous card in Kaijin x3 there. What's the purpose of its inclusion? What do you bring it in against?
I only caught the finals table after Romellos was about to die, so I never really knew what his tribe was or who his commander was. Surprising choice imho, but fitting. I did get to watch Gonzzy pilot AJ's monstrosity to victory after that and every time he played another piece on his way to victory I was like...these guys are not killing him? And they did try. Avacyn + Platinum Angel by themselves held off the hordes. Predator Flagship (a staple in AJ's roster) accounted well for itself. I don't recall all the plays but it was like watching clock work. Tight and inevitable.
Schedule question: What's with the regular event with elves and goblins banned?
Contagion Engine might be a bit better against aggressive strategies than Grim Poppet. Engine also gives Loyalty to Karn if that ends up ever being relevant.
Change to MOCS Promos: The change – you can get more. In the past, if you got 15 or more QPs, you got the promo. Starting next season, you get one copy for every multiple of 15 QPs you earn. Win 30 points, get two; 45 points, get three, etc. Seems like a solid change.
This one is very nice. It avoids making you do 15 QPs in several accounts when you want the card more than you want to play in the MOCS finals.
Thanks for the positive feedback Joe. I plan on keeping it up :)
I like the article man. Nice work. I've been playing kiki pod lately and it is seriously hard to decide what hands to keep or toss away.
I like strategic articles a lot, keep it up.
We are two good buds having a nice discussion on a game we love, all good on that front!
I would caution you in the belief the survey is mostly just vintage and legacy players, that question was multi-pick so many of those people that selected legacy/vintage also selected Commander (love this format and your articles on it). Also the largest single segment reporting results was the 2-5 year group. So I DO think this survey is more representative of the PureMTGO segment than you think, I do not have the unique daily PureMTGO views but I would be gander 118 is a substantial %. But we can add this to the friendly banter, I bet this is very representative to the PureMTGO segment which by the way is a very important segment to WOTC in my book (without their detailed financial analysis at my fingertips).
So where do we go from here? Yes I think v4 was very rocky, yes we lost players, yes there is some resentment and real concerns with the players, I acknowledge this and have felt it myself. But what I can say is IT IS BETTER, v4 has grown on me and even 2hg EDH is fun on v4 TRUST ME! I think WOTC is doubling down on MTGO and poised to improve it based on earnings reports and people need to hold on and retry. Yes WOTC made mistakes and yes we want more, but enjoy what we have - it might be better than you think?
Thanks Paul and I agree with you. I added some color to my reply to Lagrange below regarding participation rates but I will say for me too v4 has gotten much better and is certainly a playable client in my book. Yes it needs fixing and is far from expectations, however, I have actually played A LOT of 2hg EDH games on v4 in the last few weeks and the enjoyment is back (btw the new Teferi is such a beast in 2hg EDH, maybe that is my next article...).
So those out there not giving v4 a chance, I would say give it another chance and you will probably find playing Magic on it fun.
Thanks Lagrange and this was the exact point I was going to make to Paul's comment above. The survey has low participation from a MTGO userbase perspective but my guess it has a high participation rate from the PureMTGO userbase. So at the very least it will help me understand my audience as a writer. I also think that the PureMTGO userbase is an important one for WOTC, we are heavily invested in Magic because we read, write and sell (MTGOTraders is the largest and most well known store brand on MTGO) Magic.
I still don't think we're far apart. I think we're (gently) butting horns on technicalities and the application of some larger principles, not the principles themselves.
Anyway, not "the PureMTGO segment". Your sample is not representative of PureMTGO. There are large communities for Pauper, Heirloom and Commander here. Your sample shows a 62% of Vintage and Legacy players. There's not a lot of Vintage and Legacy articles on PureMTGO, it's just a fact.
So I was actually thinking of your segment as "older, more experienced players who mostly play the classic eternal formats". And just to be clear, I don't think this segment is inherently irrelevant. It has its rights, it should be allowed to make its voice heard, much like everyone else. "Almost meaningless" was a strong choice of words, maybe, but my point was entirely statistical. And I'm pretty sure Wizards can and will take segmented opinions and act on each of them differently. So they might say, "We lost the Vintage players. So be it." Actually, I think they already do give less weight to the Vintage and Legacy players in the Magic world at large than they do the Standard and Limited players. And, you know, rightly so, statistically speaking. Other companies would have probably entirely written off such a segment by now, and retired everything related to it.
I think it's not being appreciated enough the fact that Wizards does try to make everyone happy. It's impossible, and they make a mess of it, but they try, even against reason sometimes. Maybe they should even stop trying, because it gets in the way sometimes, but as a fringe player who makes a fuss about things like the Changeling construction rule still not working, I couldn't ever really wish for that.
My whole point was that your survey is representative of one specific group, yet can be easily misconstrued as representative of a larger segment. And this has nothing to do with you or your choices, it would be true of anybody in the same position. For instance, if I took 100 random people from my buddy list and made them take this same survey, I'd create my own, separate, equally non-representative, equally ultimately meaningless segment, that would give different answers from yours (for instance, it would show, like, 80% preferences to Tribal Wars as the favorite format, which is statistically very deviant).
And I want to clarify that I think you're a great guy (and a great player, to boot), I admire the way you're not taking this exchange as a flame war (which is not meant to be!). And you had all the rights to organize this survey, and you did it well. I question the usefulness of it, not the right to pursue what you thought was useful. After all, if everybody did what they think they should do to make the world a better place, the world WOULD become a better place, mistakes notwithstanding. Well-intentioned action can result in troubles, but it's almost always better than inaction, no?
I think it is a nice survey. The participation is relatively high or at least I dont think you could have hoped for more respondents. I also think the respondents are likely to be a good representation of your readers. So your writing is very much in sync with the opinions of your regular audience.
I dont see much difference in how WotC and you handle feedback. Feedback is a gift. And with some/most of the feedback in the comments you agree to disagree with the people giving the gift of feedback.
I think the biggest problem is the sample size. I am not a statistician nor do I care much for stats beyond the curiosity some stats satiate. I am however pretty sure that 120 (give or take) people isn't even close to a real number for players. The biggest problem is that many of those who have disaffected won't bother to take your survey because they don't care, and for example I didn't take it because, time and honestly I think it is an (albeit interesting) waste of it, because it is reaching a very small audience.
I think you are well intended and your message isn't lost on me but at the same time I think what will be will be with WOTC. They are very hard to convince when it comes to changing their plans unless there is a real money issue at hand.
I personally think there might but since it is indirect (secondary market impacts for the large part), I think WOTC is ignoring it and doesn't take that into consideration when deciding how to proceed with development.
After all they proceeded so far without major mishap. They still have a strong player base and while there is a lot dissent and grumbling they are collecting more players on a daily basis. And as long as that is true I think they wont pay attention to the longer term ramifications.
And eventually the grumbling will die down as people move on. As many have so far. I won't. I am willing and able to use the v4 client such as it is and until I can't I'll continue to play MTGO, write articles for it, and provide what commentary I feel is needed.
I expect WOTC to pay me no more heed than any other player. And for that reason I expect them to largely ignore the existence of this survey. It isn't significant enough for them to bother taking action on. As informative in a casual sense as it may be.
Get a couple thousand players to do it and you may have something more significant to take to them.
Hope you had a good TDay.
Thanks for the comment Casper. I do understand what you mean, that's why I said it is not ideal. I just can't fault someone for wanting to keep a double Rhino hand. In that deck just drawing one of the 2 drops makes that hand much better.
Well I think we are far apart :). I could tell you that if I removed all the vintage votes completely the end result remains largely unchanged and you would just have another reason why the survey is biased or not representative. Ultimately I do not think there is any findings that could persuade you to change your opinions on our current state (don't take this the wrong way, I am just saying you are firm in your belief). Even if I could somehow "magic"ally (pun intended) get you to agree that the survey results are how people look at Magic, you would then say publishing them is hurtful to the game and its growth, so do not unless that is my intentions.
As I previously mentioned, I think this survey's largest benefit to WOTC is if it is contrary to their survey. Let's say their survey shows players love v4 and rate it significantly higher than v3. Or if their survey shows people recommend MTGO over paper Magic to their friends or family (these are just examples). Then if I was president of WOTC I would want to look into these differences and understand them. I would also use this survey in some capacity as ONE item to reference in a business case presentation to Hasbro management. It points to the devotion of their fan base to do this, to the opportunity if they get more resources (they will need a lot more but it is one point) and the urgency. I am not saying use this survey directly in the business case, distill what you can from it to further the case.
Lastly, if management looks at this survey and says the pureMTGO segment is against us so we won't give them priority then we have bigger problems. I do not think they would do this nor do I think it is how this will play out.
For what it's worth, I'm right there with Kumagoro42 on this one. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even make it past the key question.
The responses to question 4 makes it obvious that your sample is completely unrepresentative of the greater MTGO community. Without a representative sample, this can tell us next to nothing about the MTGO community as a whole.
You should be happy then. Everything they have said so far about the new leagues points to that being the case.
Thanks so much for putting on these tournaments. I have had a blast the few times over been able to play .
Slugapalooza was awesome. I was 4 and 0 when v4 memory leak crashed my game and left me with 5 minutes on my clock. I was down a game, so I had no shot.
Well, the six game run I was on was fun :)
I'm really very sorry that I had to drop out, family issues and all.
Thanks for your hard work organising all these tournaments.
Paul, I didn't mention it directly, but of course the secondary market is a direct consequence of my 3 points: it couldn't exist without those, those couldn't exist without in turn generating a secondary market. Players from point 2 will need cards, and if they don't buy products from the store, then they'll buy from the secondary market. But the cards in the secondary market have been generated from the store to begin with.
A category of players who buy cards from the secondary market yet never play neither competitively nor casually is an irrelevant category for the system. And probably statistically, too: who would ever do that? Collectors? Are there that many people who are exclusively collectors of digital items?
Also, don't take my analysis as the depiction of a perfect system or anything. It's just an assessment of the foundations of reality, meant to disprove the doomsayers' wish-fulfillment fantasies. You see, for some people, in Magic as in many other situations in life, when they don't like some elements of a whole, they'll end up wishing for everything to go to hell. "If I can't have it my way, I'd rather see it destroyed". So they actually start rooting against. They'll see anything as proving their point. Which is an attitude I personally abhor, and will always fight. It's self-defeating, it's not wanting for things to get better, it's wanting for things to get worse, so they will be able to say, "Told ya!"
So, if they tell me, "This is not perfect", I'll agree. If they say, "Here's what they should make it instead", I'll support them. But if they say, "Everything is going to hell", I want proof, not impressions. Those that I described are ways to prove or disprove the health of the MTGO system. More generally, the system being commercial in nature, if it wasn't healthy=productive anymore, it would cease to exist eventually. And we would certainly see signs of a commercial enterprise going to cease to exist. For one, there would be no new projects.
Of course, money doesn't equal happiness, so this commercial product may have a lot of unhappy customers who still remain customers. There's a threshold between remaining customers while unhappy, and deciding to stop supporting the product altogether already. Wizards could probably live out of the vast majority of people who put money into MTGO and don't make all the fuss we're making. But that threshold needs to be carefully considered, and they seem to be doing it. In fact, they honestly look to me like frantic worker bees running around like crazy to make things work. It's just that there's a lot of things to make work in a system like this, and for some reason, Wizards don't put enough worker bees on the job, or maybe not the right ones. But hey, they could do nothing, let fresh new players replace the cranky old ones. A commercially healthy system that also tries to be as much polished as possible has to be appreciated.
I think we're less apart than what you think, Woof. (But maybe we'll disagree about this, too!)
I'm interested in what you think your survey can tell Wizards exactly.
See, we can't disagree that "companies that listen to all their customers and take any and all feedback as a gift" are the most praiseworthy. If I didn't believe this to be the case (and there's actually clear proof of that: suggested changes have been implemented), why would I keep writing articles addressing the fine details of what's wrong with V4?
They'll listen if you tell them, "This function is wrong. This is what would fix it, for this reason". Not sure they really can get something useful out of "There's a number of people who think you suck". Except acknowledging general dissatisfaction, but that, they just have to read their forums to know.
Actually, since they can easily put a label on this particular survey, they might even get it as, "This segment of players is not with us, whatever we'll do. So we can give up trying to appeal to them, focus on the other segments". It's not unheard of for a company to act like that. Since it's impossible to make everyone happy, you give priority to the customers who are closer/more likely to be happy.
I agree with your assessment of every hand but the first. I would mulligan the first hand no matter what, because a Boon Satyr on turn 3 on the draw is awful and you don't have enough time to find your second green source on the play. Otherwise, I think the article was spot on!
I hope they do a more casual league (i.e. I don't have to play hundreds of games to win). I love the game, but don't have time with job and kids, to be putting in that much effort.
Shivan Reef deals damage to you, but I think is necessary. As life gain maybe blue Staff out of SB, but that's not great solution.
Those all sound like good inclusions. My personal experiences in 4-player was yeah you get targeted if you have a fast start and come out the gates swinging. But many times people left me alone if I "just" had Xenagos out and a bunch of lands and others had bigger boards. That's the prime time to play a fattie, take an extra combat step, and win.
"Finally, a word about relevance. If we examine MTGO as a system, the only relevant players are, in order of relevance:..."
This I disagree with.
If it was only those 3 categories that mattered there would be no controversy and no secondary market to worry about.
Those who contribute to the secondary market matter to WOTC though not in the same way. They may purchase tix from the store and thus contribute directly or obtain them from PREs, trading etc but the exchange of cards for tix and tix for cards and packs for tix and packs for cards and so on creates an economy which keeps people buying more tix to spend on buying stuff and playing in events which generate more packs to be bought and opened (either by cracking or by limited events.)
Every interaction has some value to WOTC even if they refuse to acknowledge it. If you wipe out the casual player base the secondary market will collapse to some extent because then the only people buying cards are those who need them for tourney play.
The question is then what is the collective value of the casual player base compared to that of the tourney player base? And a follow up to that is, if the secondary market does collapse or become deflated (as it is leaning to now) where do drafters and sealed deck players sell their cards to perpetuate their drafting/sealed events?
I am pretty sure the answer to those questions weigh pretty heavily on the health of the game.
@Paul - You're right, repeatable life gain is probably best against the burn. Unfortunately, there really isn't a whole lot of lifelink creatures I can turn to. Nyx-Fleece Ram is only 1 life per turn and I think they can race it pretty easily. Seeker of the Way would be perfect if it just naturally had lifelink.
@jorzu - I can see Anger over Arc Lightning. It can get under disdainful stroke from Jeskai Aggro and is a pretty efficient answer to Mono Red and mana dork decks + Hornet Queen. I'll be trying it out tonight. I've gone down to 26 land, but up to 11 red sources (4 Shivan Reef, 4 Monastery, 2 Temple of Triumph, 1 Temple of Epiphany). Also went +1 Nullify, +1 Dig, -1 Devouring Light, -1 Land (Took out the Radiant Fountains).