I hold my hand up here: I should have raised the issue sooner. A Kaleidoscope with Wasteland environment would be unpleasant to say the least, and testing bore that out.
I registered to the event days ago and now something has come up, I will be back home around the event's starting time but there's a chance I might be a bit late. Do you guys start at exactly 17:00GMT or is it a bit more relaxed?
You guys found that Survival Mask deck too? It was actually from a Vintage side event at GP Melborne, IIRC. The deck finished in 6th, and I presume there were a few more than 8 people, but I have no idea.
Sorry about that, but I sent an email two days ago in the newsletter (which is the official tool for announcements). Last minute, that is not exactly the case.
Issues come up during testing of special events, I'm not omniscient enough to foretell them, but I'm considerate enough to correct them before an entire event is jeopardized.
It might be because of LED, but it could also be because Sealed DEs are actually good value now. They changed to prize support to 3 packs for 2-2, 9 packs for 3-1, 12 packs for 4-0. As a result we're now seeing Sealed DEs come close to maxing out, largest I've seen is ~100, when before it was around 60.
And per WOTC custom, this change was not announced at all.
Actually the forums did not go down during last week's crash.
It just shows that the forums are now effectively and completely disconnected from Wizards :-) .... so far away that they are not even affected by something which affected all of WotC.
I wouldn't be surprised if the dip in standard prices is a result of the LED MOCS. People are drafting more for QPs, playing sealed for QPs, and most likely selling cards they are not using to fuel all the events they are entering. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar trend next month with FoW (especially since I imagine more people want FoW than LED)
Can we please, please, please have no more last second bans? I wasted a lot of time thinking, preparing, and developing for a Wasteland environment, and now - ¡adiós! This has become a habit recently.
I'm not a fan of the Beta specifically because I only play multiplayer Commander. Yes, there are some shortcuts as mentioned, as well as the ability to collapse the play space of people who have been knocked out of the game. However, I hate that my play space takes up the entire bottom half of the table, squishing the other 3 players into the top half. It is extremely difficult to get a sense of the overall board state with this set up. On top of that, viewing an opponent's graveyard and exiled cards takes up a ton of room on the screen as well and requires several more clicks and reorganizing than in the old version. Finally replays for multiplayer games don't work on the Beta (or at least they didn't as of last month).
Unfortunately I think these issues are pretty much solely related to multiplayer Commander, and therefore I'm just going to be out of luck. I'm holding on to the older version as long as I can.
I have no desire to even try the new beta client until I'm forced into doing so. Otherwise it feels like I'm an unpaid Quality Control tester. In other beta tests I've gotten paid (in some fashion), usually by in-game objects. Even in this article you state 'the client had a bad day' while you were taking videos, and two of your draft picks were somehow converted into basic lands. That is nothing I want to waste my time on.
I will say I quit MTGO for 9 months when v2 went into v3 because of client issues. I was not alone. I can only hope by the time v3 goes into v4 they will have worked enough of these interface issues out that I will not feel need to take another long break.
Also I hope my V3 decks are converted into v4. When v2 stopped I lost about 500 decks and stopped playing casual because I didn't want to remake everything.
Mirrors are quite good (gameplay wise), although they can take some time. Esper might be a bad match-up but if we can slip a Whip under counters, it's gg. They cannot put a lot of pressure on us and we have time to reach our late game. As for mono-black, it should be a coin-flip. With Betrayals in the sideboard, our mono-removal draws beat Black post-board.
It depends on the area. I like the duel scene enough, there's a lot of improvements to make things better especially in formats like Commander ("attack with all these", "tap all these", piles of lands, piles of tokens, etc.)
My problem is with the deck editor. Deckbuilding in beta takes me 10 to 20 times more than in V3. (I have to record a video of it, with the comparison of how much time it takes to build the same deck in beta vs. V3). In V3, I'm able to reach any card in about 1 second by just typing the first letters of its name. In beta, I have to make a search in the database every single time. In V3, if I want to add another copy of a card that's already in the deck (or switch it to a different version), I just need to click on that card in the deck's window, and the database will automatically go there. In beta, I have to make a damn search again.
And the deck management is still not developed (I want to hope, and as far as I last checked). You can create folders, but not delete them. You save everything on the net, but I NEED the local copy of the decks for several purposes connected to writing and hosting events.
What's annoying is that one of the first things they implemented is the totally useless customization of the deck boxes with dozens of different pictures to choose from. What's the purpose of deck boxes for DIGITAL CARDS? It's neither useful nor elegant, as I won't even look at those boxes, like, ever again. And yet I'm forced to create them when I create a deck. More time wasted. Deckbuilding used to be relaxing to me. It's unnerving in beta. That has to change, hopefully they gave higher priority to other things and will get there eventually.
For what it's worth, I dislike the old client and only use the beta client. I like it, much cleaner and visiually better in my opinion. Now, seeing all those "I hate the beta client!" comments, will I get a perma-ban from Puremtgo or something?
Absolutely agree, Paul. I chalk Erman's attempt to build a redless Magic up to the heat of the moment (such a red thing to do! :P)
One thing you have to admire about Garfield's original concept, then expanded upon by MaRo, is that the color wheel really makes for a complex and fascinating description of life and the universe.
Red was my second color when I started playing Magic (green was the first one, of course. It sort of happened by chance when I divided the cards in my first Revised starter pack with a friend, he took the blue and black ones, we shared the white – I might have already told this origin story).
And yet for several years after my first run of activity (with a couple quits and comebacks in between), red became my least favorite color. In fact, I think my peak MTGO collection had very few red cards compared to all the other colors. Only recently I started loving red again. Right now there's probably white at the bottom of my ranking. (At some point in the past black was briefly there, too).
I've been playing the crap out of this deck for a few days now, enjoy it, but can not stand the esper matchup and feel like I am a huge underdog, and have not actually beaten the matchup yet
Stating this is really accomplishing nothing. This is the client we are going to get, and even if some players leave most will not. Instead of fuming and intruding on business personnel issues, give actual, useful feedback. That is how change will happen.
There are hundreds of red cards that do things that aren't burn or bring big creatures. The same is really true of every color. The fact that WOTC throws most of a single type of a card into one color does not make that color only about that type. Heck last article of yours was about a Red card that does not burn: Probability Storm.
That said when people are building decks in MTG and they think of video games, the burn deck is iconic. (Think Laser blasts, stun beams, etc), and it is where many a beginner heads first. The concept is straight forward and doable. Slow decks that don't have a good answer fold to it and even really good decks with answers can lose given a god hand.
And WOTC has definitely filled M14 with "good" burn for the beginners and every expansion has some worthy of such a deck. I am not a huge fan of the skullcrack burn deck but I like the card. It has an element of the "middle finger of fate" that I enjoy. "Oh is that your infinitely life recursion deck? Skullcrack in response. Oh do you plan on killing me with your lifegain=pain combo? Not this turn."
Red provides a balance that would not exist without it. I agree there are times when one wants to pick up the red deck and throw it out a window. The pilot goes for the sure thing rather than innovation and that in itself is irritating. And then to add insult to injury it has actually good cards. And to top it off it is fast. So fast that with the right draw it wins before some decks get a 4th land.
Incidental Lifegain can be quite good, and I was happy to play the Angelic Accord - Bubbling Cauldron - Trading Post deck anytime it was available in M14 Sealed. You are not winning with Divine Favor and Soulmender. You're winning with the 4/4 that the Angelic Accord makes!
Lifegain itself doesn't win games. If you rely solely on the lifegain of lifelinkers you won't get the effects desired. Angelic Accord is definitely not a win more card. It is a card that ensures the win. The difference may seem subtle but it is there. Without it your opponent merely has a steep hill to climb to get your life total down again. With it that hill is guarded by turrets and the 4xX angel flying power ensures a swift victory.
The way you beat it is invariably remove the accord. Thus not a win more.
I haven't used "Shiny" since they gave out the free pack of AVR to try it out. I thought it was fine, even back then, already I found myself playing a lot more slowly. I'm sure it's improved a lot since then, but probably won't switch over until we really have to, mostly because I am resistant to change in general. :P
I hold my hand up here: I should have raised the issue sooner. A Kaleidoscope with Wasteland environment would be unpleasant to say the least, and testing bore that out.
I registered to the event days ago and now something has come up, I will be back home around the event's starting time but there's a chance I might be a bit late. Do you guys start at exactly 17:00GMT or is it a bit more relaxed?
You guys found that Survival Mask deck too? It was actually from a Vintage side event at GP Melborne, IIRC. The deck finished in 6th, and I presume there were a few more than 8 people, but I have no idea.
And yes, the match with Montolio and I was 2-1.
Sorry about that, but I sent an email two days ago in the newsletter (which is the official tool for announcements). Last minute, that is not exactly the case.
Issues come up during testing of special events, I'm not omniscient enough to foretell them, but I'm considerate enough to correct them before an entire event is jeopardized.
I've seen a couple max out. I thought it was a mistake at first. Of course, as soon as they change it, I go on a string of 2-2 finishes.
It might be because of LED, but it could also be because Sealed DEs are actually good value now. They changed to prize support to 3 packs for 2-2, 9 packs for 3-1, 12 packs for 4-0. As a result we're now seeing Sealed DEs come close to maxing out, largest I've seen is ~100, when before it was around 60.
And per WOTC custom, this change was not announced at all.
You gotta wait six months or so to sell your commons from flashback drafts. Don't worry, they'll go back up.
Actually the forums did not go down during last week's crash.
It just shows that the forums are now effectively and completely disconnected from Wizards :-) .... so far away that they are not even affected by something which affected all of WotC.
Thanks for your article as always. If I may, I think you forgot he opinion section concerning leagues! :)
I wouldn't be surprised if the dip in standard prices is a result of the LED MOCS. People are drafting more for QPs, playing sealed for QPs, and most likely selling cards they are not using to fuel all the events they are entering. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar trend next month with FoW (especially since I imagine more people want FoW than LED)
Can we please, please, please have no more last second bans? I wasted a lot of time thinking, preparing, and developing for a Wasteland environment, and now - ¡adiós! This has become a habit recently.
I'm not a fan of the Beta specifically because I only play multiplayer Commander. Yes, there are some shortcuts as mentioned, as well as the ability to collapse the play space of people who have been knocked out of the game. However, I hate that my play space takes up the entire bottom half of the table, squishing the other 3 players into the top half. It is extremely difficult to get a sense of the overall board state with this set up. On top of that, viewing an opponent's graveyard and exiled cards takes up a ton of room on the screen as well and requires several more clicks and reorganizing than in the old version. Finally replays for multiplayer games don't work on the Beta (or at least they didn't as of last month).
Unfortunately I think these issues are pretty much solely related to multiplayer Commander, and therefore I'm just going to be out of luck. I'm holding on to the older version as long as I can.
I have no desire to even try the new beta client until I'm forced into doing so. Otherwise it feels like I'm an unpaid Quality Control tester. In other beta tests I've gotten paid (in some fashion), usually by in-game objects. Even in this article you state 'the client had a bad day' while you were taking videos, and two of your draft picks were somehow converted into basic lands. That is nothing I want to waste my time on.
I will say I quit MTGO for 9 months when v2 went into v3 because of client issues. I was not alone. I can only hope by the time v3 goes into v4 they will have worked enough of these interface issues out that I will not feel need to take another long break.
Also I hope my V3 decks are converted into v4. When v2 stopped I lost about 500 decks and stopped playing casual because I didn't want to remake everything.
Mirrors are quite good (gameplay wise), although they can take some time. Esper might be a bad match-up but if we can slip a Whip under counters, it's gg. They cannot put a lot of pressure on us and we have time to reach our late game. As for mono-black, it should be a coin-flip. With Betrayals in the sideboard, our mono-removal draws beat Black post-board.
It depends on the area. I like the duel scene enough, there's a lot of improvements to make things better especially in formats like Commander ("attack with all these", "tap all these", piles of lands, piles of tokens, etc.)
My problem is with the deck editor. Deckbuilding in beta takes me 10 to 20 times more than in V3. (I have to record a video of it, with the comparison of how much time it takes to build the same deck in beta vs. V3). In V3, I'm able to reach any card in about 1 second by just typing the first letters of its name. In beta, I have to make a search in the database every single time. In V3, if I want to add another copy of a card that's already in the deck (or switch it to a different version), I just need to click on that card in the deck's window, and the database will automatically go there. In beta, I have to make a damn search again.
And the deck management is still not developed (I want to hope, and as far as I last checked). You can create folders, but not delete them. You save everything on the net, but I NEED the local copy of the decks for several purposes connected to writing and hosting events.
What's annoying is that one of the first things they implemented is the totally useless customization of the deck boxes with dozens of different pictures to choose from. What's the purpose of deck boxes for DIGITAL CARDS? It's neither useful nor elegant, as I won't even look at those boxes, like, ever again. And yet I'm forced to create them when I create a deck. More time wasted. Deckbuilding used to be relaxing to me. It's unnerving in beta. That has to change, hopefully they gave higher priority to other things and will get there eventually.
For what it's worth, I dislike the old client and only use the beta client. I like it, much cleaner and visiually better in my opinion. Now, seeing all those "I hate the beta client!" comments, will I get a perma-ban from Puremtgo or something?
Of course I say that, and I end up finally winning a match of it.
Yeah I lose to Mono B when I play this deck. Heroic doesn't seem favorable either
Absolutely agree, Paul. I chalk Erman's attempt to build a redless Magic up to the heat of the moment (such a red thing to do! :P)
One thing you have to admire about Garfield's original concept, then expanded upon by MaRo, is that the color wheel really makes for a complex and fascinating description of life and the universe.
Red was my second color when I started playing Magic (green was the first one, of course. It sort of happened by chance when I divided the cards in my first Revised starter pack with a friend, he took the blue and black ones, we shared the white – I might have already told this origin story).
And yet for several years after my first run of activity (with a couple quits and comebacks in between), red became my least favorite color. In fact, I think my peak MTGO collection had very few red cards compared to all the other colors. Only recently I started loving red again. Right now there's probably white at the bottom of my ranking. (At some point in the past black was briefly there, too).
I've been playing the crap out of this deck for a few days now, enjoy it, but can not stand the esper matchup and feel like I am a huge underdog, and have not actually beaten the matchup yet
Stating this is really accomplishing nothing. This is the client we are going to get, and even if some players leave most will not. Instead of fuming and intruding on business personnel issues, give actual, useful feedback. That is how change will happen.
There are hundreds of red cards that do things that aren't burn or bring big creatures. The same is really true of every color. The fact that WOTC throws most of a single type of a card into one color does not make that color only about that type. Heck last article of yours was about a Red card that does not burn: Probability Storm.
That said when people are building decks in MTG and they think of video games, the burn deck is iconic. (Think Laser blasts, stun beams, etc), and it is where many a beginner heads first. The concept is straight forward and doable. Slow decks that don't have a good answer fold to it and even really good decks with answers can lose given a god hand.
And WOTC has definitely filled M14 with "good" burn for the beginners and every expansion has some worthy of such a deck. I am not a huge fan of the skullcrack burn deck but I like the card. It has an element of the "middle finger of fate" that I enjoy. "Oh is that your infinitely life recursion deck? Skullcrack in response. Oh do you plan on killing me with your lifegain=pain combo? Not this turn."
Red provides a balance that would not exist without it. I agree there are times when one wants to pick up the red deck and throw it out a window. The pilot goes for the sure thing rather than innovation and that in itself is irritating. And then to add insult to injury it has actually good cards. And to top it off it is fast. So fast that with the right draw it wins before some decks get a 4th land.
Incidental Lifegain can be quite good, and I was happy to play the Angelic Accord - Bubbling Cauldron - Trading Post deck anytime it was available in M14 Sealed. You are not winning with Divine Favor and Soulmender. You're winning with the 4/4 that the Angelic Accord makes!
Lifegain itself doesn't win games. If you rely solely on the lifegain of lifelinkers you won't get the effects desired. Angelic Accord is definitely not a win more card. It is a card that ensures the win. The difference may seem subtle but it is there. Without it your opponent merely has a steep hill to climb to get your life total down again. With it that hill is guarded by turrets and the 4xX angel flying power ensures a swift victory.
The way you beat it is invariably remove the accord. Thus not a win more.
I haven't used "Shiny" since they gave out the free pack of AVR to try it out. I thought it was fine, even back then, already I found myself playing a lot more slowly. I'm sure it's improved a lot since then, but probably won't switch over until we really have to, mostly because I am resistant to change in general. :P