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By: one million words, Pete Jahn
May 20 2011 10:08am
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Hammie’s The State of the Program for May 20th

This series is an ongoing tribute to Erik “Hamtastic” Friborg.
 
Editorial Section: Access to Old Cards
 
I started a video series showing just how broken some of the old school combo decks were. I also played in some of the Mirage and Tempest events. All this got me thinking about the cost of old cards, and what Wizards can do if it wants to preserve old formats.
 
In the paper world right now, Legacy is booming. It is also doing pretty well online. However, Legacy decks require a bunch of old rares that are in short supply. In the paper world, that includes cards from early sets which were printed in small numbers. Online, that includes Invasion block, which was underdrafted, and rares from sets like Mirage.   And, of course, Force of Will online. 
 
Right now, some Legacy cards are quite expensive online. Force of Will and Lion’s Eye Diamond top the list, but an awful lot of the staple rares – cards like Wasteland and the dual lands – all cost upwards of $20. Worse yet, some of these cards are not only expensive, they are often unavailable. It is bad now, but if Wizards can, someday, grow the user base, the problem becomes more acute.
 
Wizards is doing what it can to get old cards online. Last week, it let players buy Tempest and Mirage cards from the store, and allowed TIX-only entry into Mirage and Tempest block draft and sealed events. This helps, but serious problems remain.   The biggest one is that nearly all the cards in an old set, like Mirage, are unplayable in any constructed format in which they are legal. Formats like Legacy and Classic have 10,000+ legal cards, and only the best are actually playable. For example, if you want to play a creature that costs 1GG, why play Brushwagg when you could play Eternal Witness or even Viridian Corrupter.   This makes it hard to get a positive EV on an event, if you fail to open money cards. 
 
This problem is only going to be worse when Masques block comes online.   I learned to draft competitively during Masques block – and no part of the block is good. Rishadan Port is going to be very expensive, because no one will draft Masques. But that’s a problem for the future. Let’s look at what Wizards did last week, instead.
 
Wizards opened two separate pipelines to let old cards flow into the system, and did so for both Mirage and Tempest blocks. Let’s look at the results. Wizards did not release data on the number of events firing, or number of players, but I did some sampling and I can make an informed estimate.  These are approximate numbers, and the number of packs are just those of the main set – each small set opened the same number. 
 
Format
Fired
Players
Packs
Tempest Sealed
28
28
1,500
Tempest Draft
700
8
5,500
Mirage Sealed
14
18
500
Mirage Draft
200
8
1,600
By doing some simple math, we can get the number of playsets of any given card opened. For example, roughly 2,100 packs of Visions were opened. Since Visions has 50 rares in the set, 2,100 / 50 or about 42 copies of any given rare entered the system. Here’s the breakdown for playsets of rares by set. 
 
Rare Breakdown
Total
Per Set
Playsets
Tempest
7,000
110
16
Stronghold
7,000
44
40
Exodus
7,000
44
40
Mirage
2,100
110
5
Visions
2,100
50
11
Weatherlight
2,100
50
11
In short, during the week of drafting, five new playsets of Lion’s Eye Diamond, and 40 playsets of Oath of Druids entered the system. Not a lot – but we added  about 190 new Wastelands. That seems to have nudge the price of Wasteland down a tick.
 
In the online world, we are lucky in that Wizards can do this, with everything but Force of Will. However, Force of Will is climbing in both the paper world as well – played copies are selling for $70 each. Force of Will is not on the reserve list in the paper world, so I could see Wizards taking action to make it more available. One option might be to include it in a Duel Deck set, or even a From the Vaults limited edition. It might also appear as a player reward foil for attending a GP – in which case it might appear online as a Level 7 or higher player reward card, or as a MOCS participation card.   That does not break Worth’s promise – which was not to release Force of Will in another MED set.
 
I have no inside information, but I expect wizards is concerned about the price of Force of Will, and the cost of entering old formats in general. Of course, Wizards can see how many copies of cards like Force are being hoarded. If Force is unavailable at MTGOTraders.com because the existing copies are scattered around in playsets, that’s a problem for new players. OTOH, if a couple dozen accounts have 50-100 each, it’s not. Only Wizards knows.      
 
(Personally, even though my playset is now worth over $500, I want Wizards to reprint the card online. I would rather lose some short-term value but see online Legacy  and Classic thrive.)
 
Anyway – that’s just  my opinion. YMMV.
 
News and Discussion Items:
 
New Phyrexia: Wizards has announced the prerelease and release events for New Phyrexia. The prerelease Swiss Sealed flights begin on THURSDAY, May 26, and continue through Sunday, May 29th. This is a change – prerelease events used to run only on Saturday.   For the Swiss sealed events, the price is 30 TIX, but everyone gets a Sheoldred, Whispering One, and 3-1 or better records get a foil one as well. Payout for the Swiss sealed is 10 packs for 4-0, 4 packs for 3-1, and 1 pack for 2-2.   Not amazing, but Sheoldred is probably worth a couple TIX. 
 
Another change – Wizards is also offering 8 player Swiss drafts during the same period. Prerelease Drafts are 20 TIX, and pay out 4 packs for 3-0, 2 packs for 2-1 and one pack for 1-2. Drafters also get a couple warmarks, but cannot win a Sheoldred.
 
The set hits the store on May 30th. The main release events to begin June 3rd
 
Starting May 25th, you can also play in Odyssey block sealed events. These are large, 6 round events. 6-0 wins a complete foil set of one of the block’s sets. 5-1 wins 15 boosters – 5 draft sets.   I’m not sure about the EV here. The only money cards in the block are  Entomb, Tarnished Citadel, Terravore, Ichorid, and the Wishes. Everything else is worth less than the price of the pack, and often much less. On the other hand, if you liked threshold and the rest of the block, have at it.
 
Tournaments:
 
Thursday Night Magic this week: Legacy constructed. 
 
Wizards scheduled a whole bunch of tournaments last week.  I don’t have the exact count, because they showed the Tempest and Mirage events as happening in the Premier Events room, but they actually mixed into the limited events in the Daily room. As a result, I did not get good numbers on either the old set events or the more recent sealed events. Maybe next week. 
 
Let’s look at Constructed Tournaments for the week of May 10th through May 17th.   Wizards scheduled 210 constructed events – although the actual number is probably higher. The calendar showed that the PE room was used mainly for Tempest and Mirage sealed events, but in reality the PE schedule looked more like normal times. However, I pull data from the calendar, so I am understating the number offered. I pull data on fired events for MTGOnline.com. Using the data I have, it looks like 175 of those fired. Here’s the breakdown.
 
Format
Fired
Scheduled
% Fired
Standard
51
?
? %
Legacy
19
25
76 %
Scars Block Constructed
47
?
? %
Kaleidoscope
0
6
0 %
100 –card Singleton
0
7
0 %
Pauper
28
28
100 %
Momir Basic
26
26
100 %
Standard Singleton
0
6
0 %
Classic
2
7
29 %
Extended
0
26
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.
 
Cutting Edge Tech:
 
The big news is the debut of New Phyrexia cards in the paper world. In Orlando, over 300 players sleeved up cards from the new set for the SCG Open.  In the end, we learned three things:
 
1.      Caw-Blade ain’t dead.
2.      The Splinter Twin combo is for real.
3.      New Phyrexia is going to twist the format, but not change it a whole lot. 
 
UW Caw-Blade won the event, and a second copy placed fourth. The big change was the addition of this card: Batterskull.
 
 
The card is insane. Batterskull also figures heavily in the UBW version of Caw-Blade, generally called “Darkblade,” which adds black for Inquisition of Kozilek and removal. Despise the phyrexian mana -5/-5 card figures prominently in these builds. 
 
The Second and Third place decks featured the combo of Splinter Twin and Deceiver Exarch. This is quite a combo – infinite 1/4s.
 
Splinter Twin
 
About the only downside is that it requires a lot of clicking online – in the paper world you can just say “End of turn, tap Exarch to copy itself, copy untaps the enchanted exarch, rinse and repeat two million times. Untap, kill you.” Doing it online is not quite as quick.
 
Here is the coolest deck I saw in the top eight: an RUG deck with the Splinter Twin combo crammed in. 
  
 
In Legacy, here is the new hotness:
 
 
 
Seven of the Top 8 decks played Mental Misstep – the one exception was the eighth place Metalworker deck. 
 
SCG has another Open next weekend, so we will see what effect that has on the metagame. After that, GP Providence will define the Legacy metagame, at least for paper.  Online, we are still missing Mercadian Masques, and cards like Submerge. Submerge was in the sideboards of a lot of the Top 8 decks. 
 
The SCG Open Legacy Top 8 had three copies of Team America (with Mental Misstep), two Landstill decks*, one Metalworker deck, one Merfolk and a Painter’s Servant / Grindstone deck. Landstill decks finished second and third at the SCG Open. I featured Landstill in the deck tech section last week. I don’t know that the Painted Stone deck is quite as techie, but here it is:
 
 
Card Prices: 
 
Standard prices are down almost across the board. I suspect that people are selling off, probably to get enough TIX to play in the prerelease / release events. Others are building their decks. Of note, though, Big Jace has finished sliding. Having Jace in 14 of the Top 16 decks at SCG Orlando may have something to do with that. 
 
Standard & Block Cards
Price
In Stock?
Last Week
Change
(Jace, the Mind Sculptor)
$ 74.00
Y
$ 73.00
+ $ 1.00
$ 20.50
 
$ 21.50
- $ 1.00
$ 36.00
 
$ 41.00
- $ 5.00
$ 12.50
 
$ 13.75
- $ 1.25
$ 20.00
 
$ 23.50
- $ 3.50
$ 23.00
 
$ 23.00
---
$ 4.75
 
$ 5.25
- $ 0.50
$ 11.50
 
$ 11.75
- $ 0.25
(Sword of Feast and Famine)
$ 14.00
 
$ 17.00
- $ 3.00
$ 29.50
 
$ 32.00
- $ 2.50
$ 7.75
 
$ 7.75
---
$ 7.75
 
$ 8.75
- $ 1.00
Pyromancer’s Ascension
$ 3.50
 
$ 4.25
- $ 0.75
$ 5.25
 
$4.75
$0.50
$ 0.90
 
$ 0.90
 
 
Legacy prices have generally held steady. Wasteland is dropping a bit – it is an uncommon, and a fair number were busted during the Tempest drafts last week. That said, it is still an insane card. 
 
Legacy Cards
Price
In Stock?
Last Week
Change
$ 150.00
N
$ 160.00
- $ 10.00
$ 50.00
Y
$ 54.00
- $ 4.00
$ 59.40
Y
$ 59.40
---
(Underground Sea(MED4)
$ 23.00
Y
$ 23.00
---
$ 42.00
N
$ 42.00
---
$ 38.00
Y
$ 38.00
---
$ 16.00
Y
$ 16.00
---
$ 7.75
Y
$ 7.75
---
$ 23.00
Y
$ 23.00
---
$ 22.00
Y
$ 22.00
---
(Undiscovered Paradise)
$ 12.00
Y
$ 12.00
---
$ 4.00
Y
$ 4.00
---
$ 14.50
Y
$ 14.50
---
 
Classic is also showing very little change, although Dredge staple Ichorid climbed again. Wasteland dropped a bit, which shows that adding a bunch of them to the marketplace does have an impact. On the other hand, it is still an insane card. 
 
Note: cards which are staples in both Legacy and Classic may appear in either list. If you don’t see a card in one list, check the other. 
 
Classic Cards
Price
In Stock?
Last Week
Change
$ 110.00
Y
$ 110.00
---
$ 32.00
Y
$ 32.00
---
$ 28.00
Y
$ 28.00
---
$16.50
Y
$16.50
---
$ 19.00
Y
$ 19.00
---
$ 12.50
Y
$ 12.50
---
$ 23.95
Y
$ 23.95
---
$ 18.00
Y
$ 16.00
+ $ 2.00
$ 11.00
N
$ 11.00
---
$ 10.00
Y
$ 10.00
---
$ 25.00
Y
$ 25.00
---
 
So far at least, the influx of a lot of Tempest block cards (and handful of Mirage block cards) have not really affected prices. That might indicate that the market is responding slowly, but it might be that dealers simply restocked their inventories a bit, but the number of cards added were not sufficient to sway prices.   
 
Deck Prices:
 
Time to price out a few more decks. As before, I’ll do one Standard, one Legacy and one Classic deck.   
 
Valakut, (3rd place, here) Standard. The current cost is $140.  (Cheap lands, no Planeswalkers = affordable deck.)
Painted Stone, (3rd place, here) Legacy. The current cost is $1,200.
Metalworker, (3rd place, here), Classic. The current cost is $621 (skipping Force of Will makes it a lot cheaper.)
 
Last week’s decks, just for reference: 
 
Caw-Blade, Standard. The cost was $ 518
Team America, Legacy. The cost was $ 1,586.
GG Oath, Classic. The cost was $ 1,126.
 
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 am trying to play in TNMO every week. Last week’s format was Scars Block draft.   I managed to get into one draft. Nothing exciting – I drafted a decent GB poison deck after opening Phyrexian Crusader. I won the easy matches, but got blown out by a deck with Elspeth, a pro-black & green Sword and Mirran Crusader. Nice opens…
 
I tried to enter as many Tempest and Mirage 4-rounders as I could. Problem was; that was not many. I did get into some that did not fire, but I played in three Tempest events, going 3-1 twice, so the second event cost me just 2 TIX, and I have a playset of Tempest block in my account. I now have a fifth Wasteland to sell, but that’s about it for the money cards.       
 
I didn’t get to read any articles this week. Work was nuts.  In fact, I’m going to have to cut it off here and get back to it.
 
PRJ
 
“one million words” online, but I'm living in the paper world most of this week. 

16 Comments

TNMO by Silverhammer at Fri, 05/20/2011 - 11:50
Silverhammer's picture
5

First off, nice work. Lots of info, but the right amount of depth on each topic (IMO).

Regarding your TNMO comments, you mention this week's format is Legacy constructed. If I'm not mistaken, this was the format last night (since the article is posted on Friday). It would be cool if you mentioned next week's format as a look-ahead. That info is probably more relevant to us readers.

Keep up the good work.

TNMO by one million words at Fri, 05/20/2011 - 12:19
one million words's picture

whoops. Each week I start the article by pulling up the Word version of last week's article, copying all the prices from current to last week, erase the topical stuff and change the TNMO format.

Guess which one I forgot to do...

TNMO for next week is Scars of Mirrodin Block 4-Booster Sealed.

And thanks for the kind words.

great stuff, I always like by A_New_Hope at Fri, 05/20/2011 - 11:55
A_New_Hope's picture
5

great stuff,

I always like seeing the price changes and hearing aout the big events going on,

I sorta wish they would find another budget format for official events since they're obviously really popular and get people to start playing more seriously without the huge investment barrier, and pauper while ok doesn't feature a lot of my favorite magic dynamics.

Another good article by howlett23 at Fri, 05/20/2011 - 12:46
howlett23's picture
5

It is very classy to see someone who truly has the health of the game in mind, rather than their own collection/monetary value. I know most pros/writers/etc do too, but I often question many of their degrees of dedication or perhaps their true motives for not believing that more copies of the older power cards would be good for the legacy and classic formats.

As a vorthos I feel really by Scartore at Fri, 05/20/2011 - 13:24
Scartore's picture
4

As a vorthos I feel really sorry for poor masques block. Since I started playing again online just before mirrodin, its the only block of cards I have never actually played with. And it gets soooo much hate from longtime players. Meanwhile there's so much broken Urza's stuff, yuck.

If you had played Masques block. by one million words at Fri, 05/20/2011 - 14:21
one million words's picture

It isn't that we old timers hate Masques block. It has some great cards. Accumulated Knowledge, Rhystic Study, Misdirection, etc. I have many fond memories of playing with some Masques block cards. However, I have no fond memories of playing Masques block limited.

This should sum it up. Back in those days, I played at a local store that had spawned Bob Maher and numerous other pros. In the middle of Masques block, while prepping for a limited PTQ and upcoming Pro Tour, we decided it would be more fun to draft 5th Edition, Homelands and Fallen Empires - which we did.

Maques block limited is so bad, and the set has so many bad cards, the set will be underdrafted, which means that the few good cards will be really expensive.

Can't wait by jake_antonetz at Fri, 05/20/2011 - 13:39
jake_antonetz's picture
5

Can't wait for next week's article I want to see how Modern(the new format under testing) affects the market.

From what I can see in the by Scartore at Fri, 05/20/2011 - 17:01
Scartore's picture

From what I can see in the boards about Modern, It would become my preferred casual format, especially if it's 8th edition and upwards.

Modern has caused Spikes already. by menace13 at Sun, 05/22/2011 - 07:07
menace13's picture

The Ravnica Shock Duals are all out of stock and have doubled since the announcement. Mostly the Islands are out, but Shrine, Tomb and Blood Crypt are easier to find.

Manabase hoarding has begun!

I just noticed that myself... by Scartore at Sun, 05/22/2011 - 14:44
Scartore's picture

I just noticed that myself... sad face.
Maybe they get reprinted in a core set upcoming?

Force of Will Reprinting by Longshot356 at Sat, 05/21/2011 - 04:30
Longshot356's picture

Totally agree. I wouldn't be upset if they released it as a promo or something even though I have a set. To be honest I thought I was buying at its peak and it was only 100 tix then.

I understand the "restricted" by char49d at Sun, 05/22/2011 - 15:08
char49d's picture

I understand the "restricted" list in paper to a degree even if it has a lot of bad side effects, it was put into place for a reason, whether or not you agree with it.

I can't for the life of me understand their policy towards Force of Will online. It isn't like they need the help of stores or even bots as they do in paper, not reprinting a critical card (in only one series of re-releases) seems absurd, especially since there are no guarantees against a reprint of the card anyway.

You would think if they were in the business of making money, they would reprint it annually (at rare, as they love to do) to continue to sell packs while keeping the price somewhat reasonable. I'm not surprised however, since MTGO is poorly managed in a number of ways.

The reserved list is not by Paul Leicht at Sun, 05/22/2011 - 19:21
Paul Leicht's picture

The reserved list is not involved in the decision not to reprint FOW. Though I suspect the reason they don't is very similar to the reasons they don't reprint cards on the reserved list in paper. They know there are a ton of customers who would be greatly upset by this. I am not saying it is the only factor but it is an important one.

If they puncture every price bubble as soon as it gets big they completely lose the faith of their customers. They already are often being accused of being money grabbing greedy liars by those who are disatisfied with mythics etc. So it isn't so cut and dried.

While it is true the client needs a huge overhaul (beta in the works as I type this according to the mothership), the game itself is working, server crashes are nonextant, tourneys may not be the best organized but they fire when enough players join and MTGO is prospering.

Well a PTQ crashed this by char49d at Mon, 05/23/2011 - 00:25
char49d's picture

Well a PTQ crashed this season, the server has many documented bugs that have not been fixed, replays are spotty - let's not kid ourselves, even though it functionally works a decent amount of the time, the client is garbage.

Puncturing huge price bubbles is exactly the sort of thing Wizards needs to do. They see no profit in out of print cards like FoW spiking in value, but it does effect the playability of the formats they run events for, and the interest in their game. A lot of players with FOW would just assume the price drop and more players enter into legacy than for it to keep value, since they aren't intending to sell them anyway. That means the only people who would care are those speculating or hoarding. Is this population larger than the population of people that would enter legacy if the price were lower? I doubt it.

Well, I wouldn't say that the by Thisismich at Mon, 05/23/2011 - 07:59
Thisismich's picture

Well, I wouldn't say that the client is garbage; it has problems, but most of the times you can work around them. It's a year I started playing again online and I have filled just one refund request (and got the refund as well), other than that I crashed a few times but I was always able to get back into the game without losing too much time.

As for the replays, it's an easy problem to solve; just note down the number of the game and then all you have to do is to edit a text file (there is an article here on puremtgo explaining how IIRC) to watch all the replays you want (even other player's replays) without problems.
Just avoid the turn fast-forward button as it sometimes crashes but the rest works just fine.

There is no indication by Cory Chamblin at Mon, 05/23/2011 - 10:11
Cory Chamblin's picture

That the price of Force of Will indicates a bubble. Legacy has been increasing in popularity, and the card is a staple, and the supply is low. It could be a little high right now, but I think the price reflects the demand relative to the supply.

I sold my Force of Wills a while ago, but I think it's very short-sighted to say that Wizards does not see any profit from refusing to reprint rare cards. The fact that they will not reprint a card even though it may reduce the number of players in a format (and where they could see a pretty solid short-term spike) indicates that they still believe in the collectibility and long term value of their merchandise. It gives us assurance that we can buy into a format and not have worthless cardboard/pixels at the end. I'm not saying they shouldn't ever reprint cards, just that there are more factors than "it's free! just print the cards and make money."

I'm sure they are carefully weighing the options and considering how to maximize the playability of the game while still maintaining the integrity of the artificial scarcity that creates the value of the cards.