Fathom seer plays a lot of roles. It gets you back in the game when tou are behind, and finds ypu disrution to put your opponent out of the game when you are ahead. It is also a surprisingly good blocker and an illusion to buff mist.
Also it is both card advantage and a body in a deck that needs both. It sinergizes really well in the deck and I would not switch it unless it is a card that can play all those roles.
Since WotC legal dept. has an issue with scaling prizes, they need to drop top 8 and just make expanded dailies. 8 wins gets you a huge amount of packs, 7 wins gets you almost a huge amount, etc. Do this for all but a select few events that truly need a top 8.
When your match is over at a PTQ you can watch other games. Back when I played paper this was a great way to learn how other decks were played. I understand there are disadvantages for allowing this online, but PRJ didn't really mention this above.
I only play with the beta client these days. One of the things that I miss is the event chat window, the one that displays things like people winning or losing or dropping. If nothing else, I can keep it open and check for updates to make sure I haven't lost connection. With the wide beta client, the event information is usually stale. After I've won a match, it still shows my last game as in progress. I shouldn't have to wait for this to be updated.
I'd like the option of audio cues/alarms (loud, let me specify the volume) when the last match finishes (i.e. the 2-minute clock starts counting down) and another one when the round begins. I'm not playing with pants and I'm not sitting around when my match is over. I'm doing chores or getting food. Having to poke my head into my computer room every couple of minutes to see if anything's changes is just plain stupid for a clock-based online game. I'd also like another alarm when I'm 5 minutes into the 10-minute-idle-ejection-punishment.
For Swiss events, if something happened and I got ejected for 10 minutes of idletime (maybe I lost internet connection or the power went out or something), I'd like the option of being able to elect to play in the next round. Regulate this however if necessary (only granted once per week?).
Can't we have a simple indicator for how many matches are still in progress? How many people are still in the event? There's a dearth of information presented about the current event. This is ridiculous for an online game. Isn't this what computers are supposed to be good at?
Sorry if I'm repeating anyone bit....
1: Promo cards for top 8. Seriously one if the only reasons I try to qualify for the MoCs is the promo card. Wizards should take advantage of that and use promo cards to augment prizes without costing them more packs. This is part if my blueprint for Vintage, but I think giving away unique promo cards that will have real value to collectors is going to be the best way to support Vintage. And I think the same could apply to weekend PEs.
2: just wanted to say that I also hate real life events for many of the reasons you listed as benefits. I think the wizards needs to think a little differently about people who play online. Just having functioning chat rooms and something to do like I dunno watch matches would be cool.
It was fun to pilot a new deck that's for sure. My play mistakes costs me at least one game I guess so that was the downside.
Meekstone is interesting and never thought of it so thanks. I see a lot of synergy for it in the deck will have to playtest it. My immediate thinking is it won't be good enough though because 1) it is an artifact, most have hate 2) it is not a creature so it is counterable with misstep, pierce, fow, etc. 3) not sure stopping them from untapping is good enough. That said it certainly is worth playtesting thanks!
Yup I never thought twice about GG protocol - to be honest I think people tend to way overthink it, it's all about intention. My intention is to say GG prior to game ending to thank the opponent for the fun time regardless of outcome. If I upset anyone my apologies, anyone that knows me knows my character...
Affinity did win it, but ncsu was getting incredible draws all tourney from what I saw. Affinity can just win with those draws, no doubt about it. It is interesting that ncsu was the ONLY workshop deck to even make top 8 and most others got nowhere. And STAX did horrid...
Until you can improve the social aspect of Magic Online, I don't think you're going to be able to improve the viability of really large tournaments.
Magic Online is more geared towards smaller, "what can I do with 1-3 hours of time" type of activities. I would love to see some kind of speed chess type of tournament.
I think when he says that Pauper prices are falling due to grinders selling out, it's more about Pauper prices tanking as a whole since they announced Pauper was only getting PE's now. Pauper prices as a whole have tanked this month.
It was nice to see you make some recordings of you piloting another deck. ;)
Affinity: It's a bit more vulnerable to the hate than Stax, but it looked pretty good in the finals. :)
TNN: Have you ever thought about testing Meekstone in this deck? Seems like the perfect deck for it, if one exists. Also deals with other stuff besides TNN.
GG "protocol": I do sometimes find it a bit odd when the winning players ggs, but I'm not one to get in a tizzy over it.
Invitational Meta: I would've also expected more Oath. Also more Dredge and Shops. But I guess people love breaking out the Fish style decks for these for some reason.
First off, your analysis of people selling out of Pauper is just wrong. Looking at your biggest monetary losers from Pauper you have: Accumulated Knowledge, Brainstorm, Land Grant, Gush, Daze, Ancestral Mask, Flame Rift. Not so coincidentally, these are the money commons drafted in Mercadian Masques. Other cards dropping can very simply be attributed to standard fluctuations.
As far as the Premier Events not firing - THS Sealed is a pretty nice value, you get to practice for Sealed PTQs and whatnot with a 7 round event and the entry is no more than a Sealed Daily Event. You also get the possibility of drafting. Standard Premier Events are similar, nice practice and Standard is clearly just the most popular format. Modern and Legacy have high barriers to entry, and Pauper events did actually fire the first weekend in my opinion mostly to support the format, although that didn't hold true the following weekend.
Of course the minimum participants for these events rising isn't helping. I could go on and on about Expected Value, but let's just say it's not a good idea if you're value oriented to enter Premier Events.
I don't have the data on Premier Events prior to the increase of minimum entry, but most of these unpopular formats were firing with 33 minimum players just because it was good value to do so.
Furthermore, you have a big issue with Premier Events in that if you sweep the Swiss portion then lose in Round 1 of the Top 8, you earn less packs than if you 4-0 a Daily Event. It's a wonder that the Standard Events are even firing.
Suggestions for improvements:
1. Increase the payout to Top 8 players. Premier Events for me, if I ever find time to play them, are for prestige only. I won't play them for value. Breaking even is just a bonus, I only want these for the prestige associated with winning an event.
2. Promo cards, avatars, playmats, bonus packs or Phantom Points for playing it out - these are all things that would be nice and wouldn't run Wizards anything really. These are the kinds of things offered at real life PTQs as well.
3. I don't think the idea of "playing against other people out of contention as well" can ever apply to MTGO. MTGO is a free play system. We don't have to go to our LGS to find a game, as you do in real life. My family and close friends don't play Magic. If I wanted to play Magic in real life I must go somewhere. This is where the side tables come into play at PTQs. These people don't have MTGO and have a hard time finding games outside of FNM at all, so of course they want to play, even if they're out of contention at PTQs!
4. I believe the prizes should scale. Of course this works much better if you can actually get people to join the events. But why should the prize pool be 222 packs regardless of how many people enter? More tickets = more prizes.
5. I think there should be a special prize associated with making Top 8 - a finals every month for the top Premier players. This is hard to formulate, but gives more incentive to play in the events. Even if that special prize is an 8-4 Cube draft.
As for the boards, why aren't they split into quarters at the huge events? Surely there is enough room with that many people? Or are they booking small venues and stuffing people in like sardines?? This sounds chaotic, hard to manage and a potential hazard.
Everything you say is an "advantage" for PTQs and Paper Events are kind of the exact reason why I don't like going.
As someone who has gotten a game loss due to a giant board with hard to read pairings and a million people rushing them at the same time, I hate that rule. Yeah it might work for events that are <500 people but when GPs in the US today are effectively always over 1K it gets a freaking mad house rush to these giant boards each round. It's a terrible way to conduct the event. Logistics of large paper Magic events are not fun. The events rarely start on time. I played at GP vegas every "flight" of GP trials started an hour after they filled. I played a few side events a draft took 2 hours after the "cut off time" for registrations for it to start on time. If that were MTGO I would have finished a draft and could have been on to my next one.
You don't get Lunch breaks at large events. At least on MTGO you could order a pizza and get it delivered and eat at your convenience that doesn't happen at large events. Better hope you can rush to that giant line to get some crappy chicken strips between running two football fields across for your next pairing and then all the way back to find your seat.
I drop out of large events when I'm not in contention. Playing without a chance at anything is not fun for me and I can't imagine it being very fun for anyone else. So you're toting a "perk" being you get to play against little kids and scrubs? Why not just play at FNM if you want to slaughter kids?
Even worse, I've had times where I was still in contention, my friends scrubbed out early and they had to wait on me to finish. Not only did I feel guilty holding them up. They had to spend an entire day in a convention center. There is only so many times you can look at overpriced singles and crappy artist booths before you are bored out of your mind. At least if we did a LAN MTGO party and one of us dropped out, no big deal, he could leave and get food, play some xbox, or watch a movie.
As for what I would do to fix PEs? Get rid of them all together. Have special 4 round events where you win an entry into a special draft that has mega prizes. Make them x player single elimination tournaments where you get an entry into a special draft that has huge prizes. Cut the giant time commitment out of events and MTGO events will be better. No reason outside of Actual PTQs or GPs on MTGO, there should be events that last more than 4 to 6 rounds.
If I read the article correctly, the point you're making - and I wholeheartedly agree with it - is that PEs don't compare to similar paper events because playing online isn't nowhere near the social experience paper Magic is. And although some people could argue it'll never be even close, I think there's lots of room for improvement (chat, clans, stopping breaking the forums etc.)
As a side note, usually my kitchen does beat fast food :)
I think PE's just aren't worth the time and investment it takes to play. Assuming the PE maxes out on players, you have to make top 32 to break even, top 16 to even make more than you put in. Also, there isn't a tangible reward for playing out your matches once you can't make top 32. In real life, the matches give you PWP, and if you're PTQing, you're probably also going to GP's, so getting points for byes is useful. On Magic Online there is no reward for playing a match once you can't get prizes. Other than seeing if you can win, there is no actual reward. Sure, maybe it boosts your rating but rating isn't a big deal anyway. I think if WOTC can make the actual matches matter then people would play more. Say maybe a reward for winning X amount of matches in PE's, or finally integrating PWP on Magic Online.
The one thing WotC did that made me most happy recently is writing on the home of the client, in reference to the release of Commander 2013: "...this unique MULTIPLAYER Magic format".
Commander is multiplayer. It was born as multiplayer, got famous as multiplayer, is designed as multiplayer. It's multiplayer.
Then they created the possibility to play it 1v1, because why not, and some people corrupted it! :P
But really, it's a 1v1 format as much as Legacy is a solitaire format.
Clever. But I think there's a couple of casual planeswalker cards out there. They're mostly called "Chandra". (I agree that they're not particularly "fun", though). And walkers like Venser and Sarkhan (both his versions) essentially scream for casual applications, having had very few, if any, non-casual applications at all.
Was never a fan of Liliana for the Veil. She also did coincide with a period of time that I played more wowtcg than I did magic though, Garruk did not really pick up until later on, so I had more play experience with him when I got back in to paper magic.
Its always a good idea to survey the landscape and figure out if what you think you know is so and to know new things you hadn't thought of knowing before. On a sidenote I finally played my Pyromancer Squee list on Sunday and wouldn't you know it I won the event with it. Skill, Luck, Victory!.
Yeah, I completely missed the "previously printed, but newly online" cards. Actually is Endless Cockroaches the only one? Looks like most of the other stuff was printed in MED sets.
so great job as always. You seem to focus on multiplayer whereas I focus on commander 1v1. I just wanted to shout out Endless Cockroaches, which is a Portal/Starter card that has now found an incarnation online. It is not game winning, nor a True-Name Nemesis, but I think it has waaaay more potential than Brood of Cockroaches, which I actually use sometimes. Think about the combo possibility with a 3 charge counter aethervial and some sac outlet. or an Aluren.. that's an infino loop. Say, Aluren, Endless, and Altar of Dementia, or Phyrexian Altar. Not to mention insect tribal, which I do have (Xira Airen for a jund insect tribal, where all the best insects are found anyway). This would be killer with a door of destinies or a cryptic gateway.
I just wanted to roaches to get their due.
The logic used to justify the disappearance of pauper events kinda makes me think that, if applied to Legacy and Classic, the payout should be increased.
Vesuvan Doppelganger was the first creature I really wanted to own....I still have 2 NM 3rd edition copies of her.
Fathom seer plays a lot of roles. It gets you back in the game when tou are behind, and finds ypu disrution to put your opponent out of the game when you are ahead. It is also a surprisingly good blocker and an illusion to buff mist.
Also it is both card advantage and a body in a deck that needs both. It sinergizes really well in the deck and I would not switch it unless it is a card that can play all those roles.
Since WotC legal dept. has an issue with scaling prizes, they need to drop top 8 and just make expanded dailies. 8 wins gets you a huge amount of packs, 7 wins gets you almost a huge amount, etc. Do this for all but a select few events that truly need a top 8.
When your match is over at a PTQ you can watch other games. Back when I played paper this was a great way to learn how other decks were played. I understand there are disadvantages for allowing this online, but PRJ didn't really mention this above.
I only play with the beta client these days. One of the things that I miss is the event chat window, the one that displays things like people winning or losing or dropping. If nothing else, I can keep it open and check for updates to make sure I haven't lost connection. With the wide beta client, the event information is usually stale. After I've won a match, it still shows my last game as in progress. I shouldn't have to wait for this to be updated.
I'd like the option of audio cues/alarms (loud, let me specify the volume) when the last match finishes (i.e. the 2-minute clock starts counting down) and another one when the round begins. I'm not playing with pants and I'm not sitting around when my match is over. I'm doing chores or getting food. Having to poke my head into my computer room every couple of minutes to see if anything's changes is just plain stupid for a clock-based online game. I'd also like another alarm when I'm 5 minutes into the 10-minute-idle-ejection-punishment.
For Swiss events, if something happened and I got ejected for 10 minutes of idletime (maybe I lost internet connection or the power went out or something), I'd like the option of being able to elect to play in the next round. Regulate this however if necessary (only granted once per week?).
Can't we have a simple indicator for how many matches are still in progress? How many people are still in the event? There's a dearth of information presented about the current event. This is ridiculous for an online game. Isn't this what computers are supposed to be good at?
Sorry if I'm repeating anyone bit....
1: Promo cards for top 8. Seriously one if the only reasons I try to qualify for the MoCs is the promo card. Wizards should take advantage of that and use promo cards to augment prizes without costing them more packs. This is part if my blueprint for Vintage, but I think giving away unique promo cards that will have real value to collectors is going to be the best way to support Vintage. And I think the same could apply to weekend PEs.
2: just wanted to say that I also hate real life events for many of the reasons you listed as benefits. I think the wizards needs to think a little differently about people who play online. Just having functioning chat rooms and something to do like I dunno watch matches would be cool.
Isn't that just half a dozen of one and six of the other?
The reason the prices are falling is that the grinders are selling out because of the loss of daily events.
It was fun to pilot a new deck that's for sure. My play mistakes costs me at least one game I guess so that was the downside.
Meekstone is interesting and never thought of it so thanks. I see a lot of synergy for it in the deck will have to playtest it. My immediate thinking is it won't be good enough though because 1) it is an artifact, most have hate 2) it is not a creature so it is counterable with misstep, pierce, fow, etc. 3) not sure stopping them from untapping is good enough. That said it certainly is worth playtesting thanks!
Yup I never thought twice about GG protocol - to be honest I think people tend to way overthink it, it's all about intention. My intention is to say GG prior to game ending to thank the opponent for the fun time regardless of outcome. If I upset anyone my apologies, anyone that knows me knows my character...
Affinity did win it, but ncsu was getting incredible draws all tourney from what I saw. Affinity can just win with those draws, no doubt about it. It is interesting that ncsu was the ONLY workshop deck to even make top 8 and most others got nowhere. And STAX did horrid...
Until you can improve the social aspect of Magic Online, I don't think you're going to be able to improve the viability of really large tournaments.
Magic Online is more geared towards smaller, "what can I do with 1-3 hours of time" type of activities. I would love to see some kind of speed chess type of tournament.
I think when he says that Pauper prices are falling due to grinders selling out, it's more about Pauper prices tanking as a whole since they announced Pauper was only getting PE's now. Pauper prices as a whole have tanked this month.
It was nice to see you make some recordings of you piloting another deck. ;)
Affinity: It's a bit more vulnerable to the hate than Stax, but it looked pretty good in the finals. :)
TNN: Have you ever thought about testing Meekstone in this deck? Seems like the perfect deck for it, if one exists. Also deals with other stuff besides TNN.
GG "protocol": I do sometimes find it a bit odd when the winning players ggs, but I'm not one to get in a tizzy over it.
Invitational Meta: I would've also expected more Oath. Also more Dredge and Shops. But I guess people love breaking out the Fish style decks for these for some reason.
First off, your analysis of people selling out of Pauper is just wrong. Looking at your biggest monetary losers from Pauper you have: Accumulated Knowledge, Brainstorm, Land Grant, Gush, Daze, Ancestral Mask, Flame Rift. Not so coincidentally, these are the money commons drafted in Mercadian Masques. Other cards dropping can very simply be attributed to standard fluctuations.
As far as the Premier Events not firing - THS Sealed is a pretty nice value, you get to practice for Sealed PTQs and whatnot with a 7 round event and the entry is no more than a Sealed Daily Event. You also get the possibility of drafting. Standard Premier Events are similar, nice practice and Standard is clearly just the most popular format. Modern and Legacy have high barriers to entry, and Pauper events did actually fire the first weekend in my opinion mostly to support the format, although that didn't hold true the following weekend.
Of course the minimum participants for these events rising isn't helping. I could go on and on about Expected Value, but let's just say it's not a good idea if you're value oriented to enter Premier Events.
I don't have the data on Premier Events prior to the increase of minimum entry, but most of these unpopular formats were firing with 33 minimum players just because it was good value to do so.
Furthermore, you have a big issue with Premier Events in that if you sweep the Swiss portion then lose in Round 1 of the Top 8, you earn less packs than if you 4-0 a Daily Event. It's a wonder that the Standard Events are even firing.
Suggestions for improvements:
1. Increase the payout to Top 8 players. Premier Events for me, if I ever find time to play them, are for prestige only. I won't play them for value. Breaking even is just a bonus, I only want these for the prestige associated with winning an event.
2. Promo cards, avatars, playmats, bonus packs or Phantom Points for playing it out - these are all things that would be nice and wouldn't run Wizards anything really. These are the kinds of things offered at real life PTQs as well.
3. I don't think the idea of "playing against other people out of contention as well" can ever apply to MTGO. MTGO is a free play system. We don't have to go to our LGS to find a game, as you do in real life. My family and close friends don't play Magic. If I wanted to play Magic in real life I must go somewhere. This is where the side tables come into play at PTQs. These people don't have MTGO and have a hard time finding games outside of FNM at all, so of course they want to play, even if they're out of contention at PTQs!
4. I believe the prizes should scale. Of course this works much better if you can actually get people to join the events. But why should the prize pool be 222 packs regardless of how many people enter? More tickets = more prizes.
5. I think there should be a special prize associated with making Top 8 - a finals every month for the top Premier players. This is hard to formulate, but gives more incentive to play in the events. Even if that special prize is an 8-4 Cube draft.
As for the boards, why aren't they split into quarters at the huge events? Surely there is enough room with that many people? Or are they booking small venues and stuffing people in like sardines?? This sounds chaotic, hard to manage and a potential hazard.
Everything you say is an "advantage" for PTQs and Paper Events are kind of the exact reason why I don't like going.
As someone who has gotten a game loss due to a giant board with hard to read pairings and a million people rushing them at the same time, I hate that rule. Yeah it might work for events that are <500 people but when GPs in the US today are effectively always over 1K it gets a freaking mad house rush to these giant boards each round. It's a terrible way to conduct the event. Logistics of large paper Magic events are not fun. The events rarely start on time. I played at GP vegas every "flight" of GP trials started an hour after they filled. I played a few side events a draft took 2 hours after the "cut off time" for registrations for it to start on time. If that were MTGO I would have finished a draft and could have been on to my next one.
You don't get Lunch breaks at large events. At least on MTGO you could order a pizza and get it delivered and eat at your convenience that doesn't happen at large events. Better hope you can rush to that giant line to get some crappy chicken strips between running two football fields across for your next pairing and then all the way back to find your seat.
I drop out of large events when I'm not in contention. Playing without a chance at anything is not fun for me and I can't imagine it being very fun for anyone else. So you're toting a "perk" being you get to play against little kids and scrubs? Why not just play at FNM if you want to slaughter kids?
Even worse, I've had times where I was still in contention, my friends scrubbed out early and they had to wait on me to finish. Not only did I feel guilty holding them up. They had to spend an entire day in a convention center. There is only so many times you can look at overpriced singles and crappy artist booths before you are bored out of your mind. At least if we did a LAN MTGO party and one of us dropped out, no big deal, he could leave and get food, play some xbox, or watch a movie.
As for what I would do to fix PEs? Get rid of them all together. Have special 4 round events where you win an entry into a special draft that has mega prizes. Make them x player single elimination tournaments where you get an entry into a special draft that has huge prizes. Cut the giant time commitment out of events and MTGO events will be better. No reason outside of Actual PTQs or GPs on MTGO, there should be events that last more than 4 to 6 rounds.
If I read the article correctly, the point you're making - and I wholeheartedly agree with it - is that PEs don't compare to similar paper events because playing online isn't nowhere near the social experience paper Magic is. And although some people could argue it'll never be even close, I think there's lots of room for improvement (chat, clans, stopping breaking the forums etc.)
As a side note, usually my kitchen does beat fast food :)
I think PE's just aren't worth the time and investment it takes to play. Assuming the PE maxes out on players, you have to make top 32 to break even, top 16 to even make more than you put in. Also, there isn't a tangible reward for playing out your matches once you can't make top 32. In real life, the matches give you PWP, and if you're PTQing, you're probably also going to GP's, so getting points for byes is useful. On Magic Online there is no reward for playing a match once you can't get prizes. Other than seeing if you can win, there is no actual reward. Sure, maybe it boosts your rating but rating isn't a big deal anyway. I think if WOTC can make the actual matches matter then people would play more. Say maybe a reward for winning X amount of matches in PE's, or finally integrating PWP on Magic Online.
The one thing WotC did that made me most happy recently is writing on the home of the client, in reference to the release of Commander 2013: "...this unique MULTIPLAYER Magic format".
Commander is multiplayer. It was born as multiplayer, got famous as multiplayer, is designed as multiplayer. It's multiplayer.
Then they created the possibility to play it 1v1, because why not, and some people corrupted it! :P
But really, it's a 1v1 format as much as Legacy is a solitaire format.
Clever. But I think there's a couple of casual planeswalker cards out there. They're mostly called "Chandra". (I agree that they're not particularly "fun", though). And walkers like Venser and Sarkhan (both his versions) essentially scream for casual applications, having had very few, if any, non-casual applications at all.
Was never a fan of Liliana for the Veil. She also did coincide with a period of time that I played more wowtcg than I did magic though, Garruk did not really pick up until later on, so I had more play experience with him when I got back in to paper magic.
Tx,
Its always a good idea to survey the landscape and figure out if what you think you know is so and to know new things you hadn't thought of knowing before. On a sidenote I finally played my Pyromancer Squee list on Sunday and wouldn't you know it I won the event with it. Skill, Luck, Victory!.
No Lilliana of the veil? all that power for three mana. At around $50 both online and off she is certainly worth every cent or ticket.
Yeah, I completely missed the "previously printed, but newly online" cards. Actually is Endless Cockroaches the only one? Looks like most of the other stuff was printed in MED sets.
Sweet article! I love the evolving landscape of heirloom. This overview give me the itch to put one of those decks together.
i actually like it more as well. It may just be new and exciting though.
so great job as always. You seem to focus on multiplayer whereas I focus on commander 1v1. I just wanted to shout out Endless Cockroaches, which is a Portal/Starter card that has now found an incarnation online. It is not game winning, nor a True-Name Nemesis, but I think it has waaaay more potential than Brood of Cockroaches, which I actually use sometimes. Think about the combo possibility with a 3 charge counter aethervial and some sac outlet. or an Aluren.. that's an infino loop. Say, Aluren, Endless, and Altar of Dementia, or Phyrexian Altar. Not to mention insect tribal, which I do have (Xira Airen for a jund insect tribal, where all the best insects are found anyway). This would be killer with a door of destinies or a cryptic gateway.
I just wanted to roaches to get their due.
The logic used to justify the disappearance of pauper events kinda makes me think that, if applied to Legacy and Classic, the payout should be increased.