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By: one million words, Pete Jahn
May 13 2011 1:02pm
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Hammie’s The State of the Program for May 13th, 2011

This series is an ongoing tribute to Erik “Hamtastic” Friborg.
 
Editorial Section: The Wait
 
It’s that season again. In the paper world, I have now cast a lot of New Phyrexia cards. I have won packs at the prerelease, and when I got home Ingrid and I played packwars with the winnings. I have cast Mutagenic Growth and revealed a Chancellor. I have watched Karn restart games (fortunately not my games) and – well, you get the idea.
 
You folks playing online only – sorry, you have to wait.
 
That’s just the way it is. There is really no alternative. 
 
I have lived through set releases where the cards were not thoroughly playtested. I don’t want to do that again. The little bugs are frustrating as he[ck]. The more serious bugs cost you games and cost Wizards refunds. The really serious bugs crash the game. 
 
They all stink. As anyone who was playing during the Darksteel release. Bad times. Really bad times. We don’t want to do that again. Sets absolutely MUST be play-tested thoroughly, and that takes time.
 
It is also not possible to have the playtesting happen ahead of the official release date. Wizards tried that, once. For one of the MED sets, it carefully selected playtesters, explained how important secrecy was for the set, and had all of us agree to non-disclosure agreements. The entire set was spoiled within 15 minutes of being provided to playtesters, by at least two different people.   There is absolutely zero chance that Wizards will ever make that mistake again. Beta testing will begin only after the full set is officially released. 
 
Which means we wait. Well, you online folks do. I have enough paper prize packs left to draft with – so that’s what I’m doing once this article is posted.  
 
Discussion Items:
 
Wizards posted an update on the MTGO Blog. Highlights include:
 
1. Mirage block and Tempest Block Events are back – both 4-3-2-2 drafts and 4-round sealed events in the Premier Events room. Details here
 
2. “Free” drafts: Scars of Mirrodin Block War Mark Draft - START TIMES: 5:00 AM PDT (12:00 UTC), 10:00 AM PST (17:00 UTC), 4:00 PM PDT (23:00 UTC), and 8:00 PM PDT (Monday 3:00 UTC) on Sunday, May 15. A Mirran and a Phyrexian event will start at each start time. You need 5 War Marks to enter. 
 
3. We have a Standard PTQ on May 14th at 11am PDT.   Unlike those in the paper world on that date, it will not include New Phyrexia.
 
Wizards has not yet announced the prerelease and release events for New Phyrexia, but expect them around the end of the month. The announced on-sale date is May 30th, so I would expect the prerelease on Saturday, May 28th, and the main release events to begin June 3rd. However, the full set was released early (see my last article for reasons), so the beta started early, and the set could be released early. Maybe.
 
Tournaments:
 
Thursday Night Magic this week: Scars draft! Good deal, unless it overloads and crashes. Of course, if it does, you get some free cards and a chance to file a refund request to get product for another draft. 
 
Wizards scheduled 310 tournaments last week (311 counting the MOCS tournament). That is an impressive number. This included the following limited tournaments:
 

Format
Dailies
PEs
M11 Sealed
35
3
MED 4 Sealed
16
0
SOM Block Sealed
36
2
Zen Block Sealed
16
1

 
I don’t have data on the number of sealed events that actually fired, but I did some random sampling.  SOM block events tended to get 40 to 60 players or more.   Older sets, like M11 and ZEN block did fire, at least occasionally, but with close to minimum numbers. I never saw an MED4 sealed event fire, but I could easily have missed some. 
 
Checking out the Sealed Swiss room on occasion, SOM 8 player events fired regularly, ZEN block on occasion, M11 very rarely, and I have not seen MED4 fire at all, for a couple weeks. 
Drafts fire. Lots. Two and eight man constructed events do as well. Larger constructed events, like Daily and Premier Events, fire only some of the time.   
 
Let’s look at Constructed Tournaments for the week of May 4 through May 10.   Wizards scheduled 200 events. Exactly half of those fired. Here’s the breakdown.
 

Format
Fired
Scheduled
% Fired
Standard
36
40
90 %
Legacy
11
18
61 %
Scars Block Constructed
29
38
76 %
Kaleidoscope
0
16
0 %
100 –card Singleton
0
15
0 %
Pauper
17
18
94 %
Momir Basic
6
6
100 %
Standard Singleton
0
15
0 %
Classic
1
18
6 %
Extended
0
16
0 %

 
I got the total number of events from the event calendar. I got the number fired from the list of results, here.  I will wait a few weeks before talking about what these results may mean.
 
Personally, I want to play in a few M11 Swiss Sealed events, because I am short a number of Titans and because I have about 40 M11 packs sitting around. The timing (duration) of a Swiss Sealed works well for me. Too bad they don’t fire. 
 
Cutting Edge Tech:
 
Not a lot this week. Everyone is brewing decks for the new Standard format, which has to wait for the end of the month when New Phyrexia appears online. So far, I don’t have any tech or favorites, beyond the Splinter Twin / Pyromancer Ascension deck everyone has already written about. I’m not sure it is solid enough. Prices on Splinter Twin and Ascension have risen, but not all that much.    
 
In other formats, I have seen one interesting innovation from XShockWaveX. He built a Standstill deck and won a Classic event, then modified the deck to be Legacy legal and went 3-1 in a Legacy Daily with it. Here are the two builds.  
 

Classic
Legacy

 
Interesting. It has been a while since I have seen Nev’s Disk played, but maybe I just have not been looking hard enough.
 
Card Prices: 
 
Standard prices have been slowly falling as players begin to react to the likely changes as New Phyrexia shakes up the format. Caw Blade is going to have to change, so people are beginning to sell their Jaces – not a lot, but enough to bring Big Jace’s price back down to just below insane. Gideon is also dropping, for much the same reason. Cards like Batterskull will affect the format, so people are selling out before the price drops too far. That won’t last. Big Jace is too good. 
 

Standard & Block Cards
Price
In Stock?
Last Week
Change
$ 73.00
Y
$ 74.00
- $ 1.00
$ 21.50
Y
$ 21.50
---
$ 41.00
Y
$ 45.50
- $ 4.50
$ 13.75
Y
$ 14.50
- $ 0.75
$ 23.50
Y
$ 24.50
- $ 1.00
$ 23.00
Y
$ 24.00
- $ 1.00
$ 5.25
Y
$ 6.25
- $ 1.00
$ 11.75
Y
$11.50
+ $ 0.25
$ 17.00
Y
$18.50
- $ 1.50
$ 32.00
Y
$ 32.50
- $ 0.50
$ 7.75
Y
$ 7.75
---
$ 8.75
Y
$8.95
- $ 0.20
Pyromancer’s Ascension
$ 4.25
Y
$ 3.25
+ $ 1.00
$4.75
Y
$ 4.25
+ $ 0.50
$ 0.90
Y
$ 0.60
+ $ 0.30

 
Legacy prices have generally held steady. Wasteland is dropping a bit – it is an uncommon, and the market expects at least a few to be busted during the Tempest drafts in the coming weeks. 
 

Legacy Cards
Price
In Stock?
Last Week
Change
$ 160.00
Y
$ 150.00
+ $ 10.00
$ 54.00
Y
$ 60.00
-$ 4.00
$ 59.40
N
$ 53.46
+ $ 5.94
$ 23.00
Y
$ 22.50
+ $0.50
$ 42.00
N
$ 42.00
---
$ 38.00
N
$ 38.00
---
$ 16.00
N
$ 16.00
---
$ 7.75
Y
$ 7.75
---
$ 23.00
Y
$ 23.00
---
$ 22.00
Y
$ 22.00
---
$ 12.00
Y
$ 10.50
+ $ 1.50
$ 4.00
Y
 
 
 $ 14.50
Y
$ 14.50
---

 
Classic is also showing very little change, although Dredge cards (Ichorid, Undiscovered Paradise) are showing a bit of upward pressure. Dredge is a fine deck, for both Legacy and Classic, and people are not running enough hate at the moment. That could change, but the market seems to be saying that this is the time to play Dredge. 
A quick note – I saw some comments telling me to combine the Legacy and Classic tables, or move cards from one to the other. I am keeping them separate, because the tables would become too large if I combined them, but I do recognize the overlap. Force of Will and Wasteland are key players in both formats, but I have to put them somewhere. Ditto Ichorid.      
 

Classic Cards
Price
In Stock?
Last Week
Change
$ 110.00
N
$ 110.00
---
$ 32.00
Y
$ 30.00
+ $ 2.00
$ 28.00
Y
$ 28.00
---
$16.50
Y
$16.50
---
$ 19.00
Y
$ 19.00
---
$ 12.50
Y
$ 12.50
---
$ 23.95
Y
$ 22.00
+ $ 1.95
$ 16.00
Y
$ 13.50
+ $ 2.50
$ 11.00
Y
$ 11.00
---
$ 10.00
Y
$ 8.50
+ $ 1.50
$ 25.00
Y
$ 24.00
+ $ 1.00

 
I am now getting price and supply data from MTGOTraders weekly. (Thanks Heath!) It’s very helpful. On the down side, it includes prices for over 28,000 items per week. I’m not sure how Erik found movers in all that data, but I’m working on it. 
 
Deck Prices:
 
Just for kicks, I priced out the cost of three decks, one Standard, one Legacy and one Classic. The Standard deck was the Caw-Blade deck that won the latest StarCity Games Open Event. The Legacy deck was also a high finisher at the SCG Legacy event. The Classic deck was a GG Oath deck. I’ll include links, but first an explanation of why I used those decks, instead of pulling them off the list of 4-0 decks at recent Daily or Premier Events. I could claim that it was because a multi-hundred person event provides a better test of a deck than a 17 player Daily. It could also be because SCG gives you a .txt version of the deck, and it is a lot easier to cram a .txt list into a spreadsheet for costing than to converting the Wizards format. Which is the real reason? Hint: I’m lazy. 
 
I rounded the prices to the nearest dollar, valuing basic lands at $0.04 each. 
 
Caw-Blade, Standard. The current cost is $ 518
Team America, Legacy. The current cost is $ 1,586.
GG Oath, Classic. The current cost is $ 1,126.
 
For both Legacy and Classic, the big cost drivers are Force of Will and Wasteland. For Caw Blade, it is big Jace.
 
I will plan on doing a couple more decks each week, time permitting. (This is time intensive.) I also plan to go back and look at the changes in deck costs over time, at least for Classic and Legacy. We will see. 
 
Weekly Highlights:
 
I have been making an effort to play more Magic, so I at least have something to insert here. As part of that approach, I am trying to play in TNMO every week. That’s not always easy since a local store has conflicting events, but that’s life. Point is that I managed to play last week. 
 
Last week’s format was Scars Block constructed.   That was a bit problematic for me. I had not played any Scars Block constructed at all – not even in the casual rooms. I also have not been fighting to get playsets of everything: I usually wait until the last set is released, then I play in plenty of limited events. The upside is that I generally end up with playsets of commons and uncommons, and a wide assortment of rares, that way. The downside is that I don’t yet have the Tezzerets, Vensers, or Koths to build any of the decks appearing in recent tournament listings. Still, for TNMO, that is not a deal breaker. TNMO is more casual.
 
I took what I owned and built a fast infect deck. I like having some control elements, so I avoided green infect (and Tempered Steel decks). I ended up playing a base black deck similar to those that moneyed in some of the recent events. I played Contagion Clasps in place of some of the cards (a Skythirix, a Vatmother, etc) that I was missing. Not recommended, but it worked.
 
TNMO is an interesting experience. I did play against some good decks, including a Tezz deck and what was probably a Venser deck with Sunblast Angels and Consecrated Sphinxs, but fast black beats and Contagion Clasps got there every time. It’s the first time in a long time that I went undefeated in a constructed event (online, that is), and I was pretty happy about that. 
 
I like the lower stress, more casual nature of TNMO. It’s not worth playing if you base your success on packs won, but it has an excellent return if you are just looking to play a lot of Magic for a low cost. The alt art Squadron Hawk just for playing doesn’t hurt, either      
 
The other highlights were playing in one paper prerelease and head judging a second. Launch parties this week.  Yay, new cards!
 
What’s Worth Playing:
 
This upcoming week, I think the best potential EV may be in the Tempest and Mirage drafts and especially the sealed queues. The drafts are okay, but the prize payout (third set  heavy) makes it very difficult to chain drafts unless you have some spare packs packs squirreled away. The four round sealed queues, on the other hand, pay out a draft set for 2-2, and enough product to play in another four rounder for just 2 TIX if you go 3-1 or better. 
 
To determine the EV, I calculated the average value of a busted pack of each of the packs in these events. I did so in three ways. 
 
-       “Straight average” I calculated the average (mean) value of a common in each set and expansion, plus the mean value of the uncommons and of the rares. The “Straight Average” value of a Tempest pack is eleven times the average value of a Tempest common, plus three times the average value of a tempest uncommon, plus the average value of a Tempest rare. (For Tempest, that’s 11*$0.12 + 3 * $0.71 + $1.37, or $4.81)
 
-       The “No money cards” average is calculated excluding the five most expensive and inexpensive cards in each set. For Tempest, that means that the commons don’t include Lotus Petal (value $5.50), and the uncommons don’t include Wasteland and Ancient Tomb in the averages. In short, this represents the average value of the pack if you open no money cards. 
 
-       “Win the Lottery” I also did the opposite, and calculated what a pack would be worth if you opened the highest value rare (Intuition), plus the three highest value uncommons and the eleven highest value commons. 
 
 

Format
Straight Average
No Money Cards
Win the Lottery
Mirage Pack
$ 2.98
$ 0.73
$ 138.31
Visions Pack
$ 4.62
$ 1.32
$ 38.54
Weatherlight Pack
$ 3.99
$ 2.33
$ 46.55
Tempest Pack
$ 4.81
$ 1.44
$ 104.82
Stronghold Draft
$ 2.11
$ 0.98
$ 20.48
Exodus Pack
$ 3.68
$ 1.74
$ 28.00
Mirage 4 Round Sealed (6 packs)
$ 23.18
$ 8.76
$ 446.80
Tempest 4 Round Sealed
$ 21.20
$ 8.32
$ 306.60

 
Entry fee is product plus 2 TIX, or a straight 26 TIX. Win a draft set for going just 2-2, the payout is pretty decent. With a little bit of luck, you can do quite well. With a lot of luck, you can hit an amazing jackpot. 
 
Good luck.
 
PRJ
 
“one million words” in the Tempest and Mirage sealed events, I hope.

21 Comments

Good by howlett23 at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 13:07
howlett23's picture

Another good homage article with your own flair. I love the "What's worth playing" section with the average and No Money vs. Lottery...as as old school player I am often jumping between the classic sets and this may help sway what i play certain times. I disagree about Jtms though, I think he'll hit 70 before rotation out, then go to about 60 on a perm basis..could be wrong, but my opinion.

thanks for the article. not by cavegoat at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 13:20
cavegoat's picture

thanks for the article.

not that it would happen, but your god packs "EV" (which i like to see in print) are you counting tempest intuition plus wasteland AND foil wasteland??

i know it happens to me all the time cracking packs like that...

no foils by one million words at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 13:33
one million words's picture

Adding a high-cost foil to the mix makes the odds of getting that pack a bit too high. :)

Is it seriously worth paying by brandonQDSH at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 14:49
brandonQDSH's picture

Is it seriously worth paying $100 for rare, $50 for uncommon, and $5 for common singles? Is it really worth it? I mean, damn, when Cursed Scroll was a $17 Standard card back in the day, I remember being pretty satisfied buying a box and cracking 1 plus some other nice rares and uncommons I needed.

P.S. Nice article!

Inflation + power creep + by Paul Leicht at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 14:53
Paul Leicht's picture

Inflation + power creep + availability have changed a lot since then.

quick correction by one million words at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 15:45
one million words's picture

The Wizards post said the Tempest and Mirage 4 round sealed events would be in the Premier event room, but they are actually in the Daily room.

Played in one - went 3-1 for enough product to play in another, but the only "money card" was a Lotus Petal. Plus a Volrath's Stronghold just for fun.

Stronghold resells to bots by Paul Leicht at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 17:09
Paul Leicht's picture

Stronghold resells to bots for 6 or so :)

Great read, thanks again for by Thisismich at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 16:09
Thisismich's picture

Great read, thanks again for the time and effort.
Then I'd like to point a thing out on the EV of TE and MI block sealed. While I absolutely agree on the fact that the sealed are better than drafts, I think that despite the mere money value being in favor of MI block, one should also note the sheer number of money uncommons of the TE block makes it a lot more potentially rewarding than MI.

In MI block you basically have to open a rare to get some value (with the exception of the Mirage tutors) while in TE there are some nice uncommons that will make a decent amout of money AND the highest price card is an uncommon itself. It's true that the highest money card of MI block is worth 2 times the highest TE block one, but the latter has 3 times the probability to show up in any event than the former.

On a side note: unfortunately MTGOtraders is not buying Price of Progress right now so my above statements may be a little off, I won't be surprised if they didn't buy other uncommons too... (well they're not buying Mirran Crusader also which is a rare, but you got the point).

The buy bot might as long as by Paul Leicht at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 17:10
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The buy bot might as long as it doesn't get distracted by other cards in your collection.

I have not had any luck with by GainsBanding at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 17:58
GainsBanding's picture

I have not had any luck with the buy bot lately. I used to be able to go to it every day and it would pick up a few cards for a few pennies. After a while it would add up to a ticket. Now it's not taking anything, the penny commons or the 2 tix uncommons.

I was referring to the by Thisismich at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 18:14
Thisismich's picture

I was referring to the buybot, sorry.
About my collection it's very difficult to get distracted by anything; I'm a limited player so I sell every money card to do more drafts/sealed :)

Anyway it's happening a lot lately, I had a foil phyrexian crusader the other day but the buybot wouldn't buy it no matter what :( I had to sell it privately (to a human player) after a couple of days to get a few tixes.
The same went for the myrran counterpart and the price of progress...

It's getting difficult to evaluate money-drafting lately basing on MTGOtraders prices :(

Ah. Having a fairly complex by Paul Leicht at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 18:30
Paul Leicht's picture

Ah. Having a fairly complex collection from ages of collecting commons/uncommons/junk rares etc I never seem to have THAT problem. The problem I usually face is not wanting to part with the cards that are hottest.

Also afaik Mtgo traders does not do a lot of foil purchasing. Foils are a volatile market to begin with and unless it's a super high end card the chances are it is over valued. I don't know the particulars so it just might be that Phyrexian/Mirran Crusaders tend to be fully stocked? I would ask Heath himself if you have questions regarding his bots.

Well, never had any problems by Thisismich at Sun, 05/15/2011 - 05:25
Thisismich's picture

Well, never had any problems selling foils till now :(
I used to sell even those foil commons and uncommons that were lingering in my collection just to make some more cents.
Now suddenly I'm not able to sell a foil marsh flats and a foil phyrexian crusader. I had to sell them in the auction room or in the trade room...

On a side note: no one seems to be interested in lotus petals anymore too :( These old formats are losing their EV by the minute...

Really??? I've had foils for by Paul Leicht at Sun, 05/15/2011 - 06:06
Paul Leicht's picture

Really??? I've had foils for years that no bot will touch except for fractional pennies which makes no sense to me (no pun intended.)

As far as the lotus petals not selling goes, I'm pretty sure there has been a glut of old set staples lately due to old sets being very frequently drafted since December. I know that cards like Tradewind Riders and Living Death which were medium ticket items are now much more affordable. So, good news for casual buyers and bad news for old set drafters.
As we have no idea how long wizards plans to flood the market with old set drafts it is hard to predict how far down the pack EVs will drop. Though I imagine if you hold your spoils for a few months this may change for the better.

But strangely someone was just complaining how TE packs were going for 7 tix+ and also were out of stock on the bots so that's some confusing data there.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of by Thisismich at Sun, 05/15/2011 - 06:27
Thisismich's picture

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of foil cards (I even turned off foil animation) if not for their value increase, so I'm just happy with non-foil cards and usually set up for trade the foil versions if I have a non-foil playset. I've noticed that the bot would often pick those even if it wouldn't pick non-foil versions of the same card (I've done a bit of experimenting... I was bored XD ).

For the petal, well, time to start an affinity pauper deck :/

As for the booster price I'm a bit surprised... MTGO online store is selling them for regular price; it's true they don't accept tixes. I've done a bit of research now before answering and my normal booster "dealers" all are out of stock for Tempest but I've seen classifields ads selling them for 5 tixes.

Missing Tempest packs by one million words at Sun, 05/15/2011 - 07:05
one million words's picture

Probably drafters. If you get knocked out in round 2, you get one Stronghold and one Exodus pack, so you have to buy the Tempest pack. That pushes the demand for Tempest. (On the other hand, Tempest packs are for sale in the store for $3.99 - this week at least.)

Very plausible, the sealed by Thisismich at Sun, 05/15/2011 - 07:28
Thisismich's picture

Very plausible, the sealed events don't fire :(

No early NPH by bubba0077 at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 17:00
bubba0077's picture
5

We've already confirmed that NPH will *not* be released online early. It is a non-trivial matter to move the release date so late in the game. Also, while beta opened early, you could tell it was early: there were more bugs at opening than we've seen in many sets. The early beta didn't really change the beta production schedule, it just allowed testers to see it at an earlier point.

Good point. by Paul Leicht at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 17:09
Paul Leicht's picture

Good point.

buybot by mtgotraders at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 18:05
mtgotraders's picture
5
Make sure to try out the hotlist. www.mtgotraders.com/hotlist/ The bots only buy cards that are in demand so if a card is cooling off and a lot of people are dumping them then the bot quits buying them until the price settles. The hotlist pays more but only buys cards we have less than 4 of on the site. Hope that helps explain things a little.
Yeah, thanks for the by Thisismich at Fri, 05/13/2011 - 18:20
Thisismich's picture

Yeah, thanks for the explanation; it makes sense and I eventually figured it out; it's just a bit frustrating having a 5 tixes card (the foil phyrexian crusader I mentioned in the last post) and not being able to cash it to draft more.

I will try and look for the existing supply too when evaluating a money-pick in a draft.