toolazy2stand's picture
By: toolazy2stand, Josue Ledesma
Jul 25 2013 10:34am
5
Login to post comments
4452 views


From Infinity to Back Again: Starting All Over

Here I was, trading the last of my rares to that same stupid bot.  Just two more tickets and I could join another draft, recoup my massive losses, and start the train again. 

“Thank you for your trade, I will save 0.03 credit(s) for next time.”

Relieved, I joined a draft but promptly 0-1’ed, dropping the event and having little to nothing in my mtgo account.  How did things get so bad to the point where I had to scrape my commons and uncommons and sell them to maybe buy a Return to Ravnica pack?  Let’s start from the beginning. 

Lorwyn had just released and I, still in high school, had no perspective of literal value when it came to spending money on a virtual card game .  I stopped playing paper Magic when Ravnica released, as my play group and I all entered high school and had no desire to play some “card game.” But I kept up.  I read the mothership articles every day, kept up with every tournament that was happening (which at the time wasn’t as covered or as frequent).  I still had the itch, the bug, and I found my relief in MTGO.  Specifically, I found relief in drafting.

I drafted often, joining the 4-3-2-2 queues because I knew I could usually win one match, and if I opened a decent rare, I could trade that for some tickets, buy a pack from a bot and join another match right away.  An 8-4 of course had a higher prize but I wasn't confident to know I'd regularly win two matches in a row.  Still I spewed money like nothing.  Back then, I was satisfied if I went 1-1 and won two packs. If I lost, I would join another one.  In increments of $15, I joined drafts, waiting for that one draft where I’d win at least one match and be able to join another draft at "no actual cost" (LLM drafts led to my hatred of Imperious Perfect, the card I always found myself losing to). 

For the most part, I kept steadily, slowly increasing my collection of commons and uncommons, trading rares to other casual players for rares I had no access to.

http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/ld/ld184_inc.jpg

Then Shadowmoor came out and the intricacies of mono-color drafting, as well as the later development of mono-red being the best and fastest deck around, made for a short amount of drafting time as even I was to discouraged to keep buying draft sets.  My natural style of playing and drafting is winning through slow, incremental value culminating in some overcosted creature or in lucky cases, a bomb to put away the match.  I loved blue and black, drawing cards, overwhelming opponents with massive amounts of 2 for 1’s throughout a game.  Shadowmoor wasn't compliant, being too fast and complicated, and Eventide with its cycle of 2-mana Mimics, were even more of a detriment to my drafting style and victories.

I laid low until Shards of Alara came out.  This was my draft set;  Multicolor – big creatures, big spells, a relatively slow format.  I had found my infinity format.  I’d easily 2-1 drafts, sometimes even 3-0ing, easily earning enough packs to draft again.  On those off times where I’d 1-1 winning only two packs, I had enough in reserve in either extra packs or valuable rares I had drafted.  Of course there were trainwreck drafts, matches where I’d flood or get manascrewed and of course, I’d lose many times to my own mistakes.  But things never got as bad to where I had to buy packs, a victory in itself. Things were looking good.

Zendikar came out and while I had trouble adjusting to the speed of the format, I quickly learned the value of Vampire Lacerator, Guul Draz Assassin and yes, even Kraken Hatchling.  It was unfortunate that I couldn’t first pick Roil Elemental – the six-mana, 2-toughness creature that needed a land drop to be relevant, but I managed.  Worldwake slowed things down and Rise of the Eldrazi was the exact opposite of Zendikar; huge creatures, lots of mana, and one of the slowest, yet sweetest formats available.  Magic life was good.  I had brainstormed with Jace, Annihilated my opponents with each Eldrazi and activated many, many manlands. 

Always a casual player at heart, even in paper Magic, I looked at my collection and felt good. I had one of each planeswalker and very painlessly drafted at least 2-3 times a week.   The next set, Scars of Mirrodin rekindled my love of the last block I played in paper - Mirrodin.  The relative mid-range speed of the format along with Infect, a mechanic I still hold dear to my heart allowed me to continue drafting without even thinking of that MTGO store.  Money on tickets or packs?  Please.  I had boosters and mythics and planeswalkers to sell before any of that happened. 

http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/cardart/DIS/Ignorant_Bliss_640.jpg

This endless drafting continued with each set release and my collection was especially bolstered by the core set releases. Because the format was more basic and the cards were simpler, the tenets of card advantage and powerful cards usually trumped aggro/cute decks (of course M12’s quick bloodthirsty format proved different at first, but I was experienced enough to adapt and hold my own). 

Innistrad was a sweet format and I found going a solid two-colors or even splashing a third would lead me to victories.  I even risked joining a few 8-4s.  I lost more often than not but getting 1st or 2nd place was so much more satisfying than in the 4-3-2-2 queues where it always felt like I just fed my winnings back into the next draft.

At this point I was even making videos for this very website on a somewhat regularly scheduled basis.  There were a lot done of various formats, but I, admittedly, got lazy and stopped at around Dark Ascension.  Worse still, Avacyn Restored came out and a losing streak manifested – the quick, creature-centric format didn’t allow for my play style to flourish.  I took a small drafting break, hoping M13 and Return to Ravnica would change things.

Things did change.

I had bigger aspirations.  I joined 8-4’s more frequently, won more and even bought two playsets of dual lands.  I wanted to build a standard deck and I did when the format was still young and untested (Junk Reanimator wasn’t even a deck yet).  I had a Junk Planeswalker deck focus on Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Lingering Souls, and Vraska, with a crazy Chromatic Lantern into Nicol Bolas sideboard for the pure control decks.  2-man queues replaced a few drafts and I had a record just under 50%, good enough for me and my budget rogue deck (I didn’t want to shell out 8-10 tix each on Thragtusk, figuring I’d beat the aggro decks some way or another.  I usually didn’t.)

I felt good, great even.  I had visions of eventually having the entire playset of duals at my disposal, able to join standard events, all from a few packs I won in Shards of Alara.

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/arcana/892_archdemonofgreed.jpg

Gatecrash came out and all my winning turned sour.  I joined 8-4’s.  Lost.  4-3-2-2’s lost.  So many 0-1 drops.  I seldom won, but when I did, I foolishly remembered those and thought “I can keep going.”  I sold my lands.  Kept losing.  Some planeswalkers.  Kept losing.  Then I stopped drafting.  I realized my mistake and knew that Gatecrash was just not my format.  Too quick, too focused on two-drops.  When I couldn’t first-pick Diluvian Primordial or Gruul Ragebeast and hope to win, I knew something was wrong.  I waited patiently for Dragon’s Maze, knowing it would have all the guilds and thus, be slower. 

The spoilers bolstered my confidence.  The cycle of 4-mana 2/4’s and fuse cards promised a slower format.  I eagerly joined many draft, winning in the beginning.  But the format was quickly adapted by other players.  Later drafts saw me lose to the same kind of Gatecrashy two-color aggro decks that curved out and punished any decks that dared to durdle.  But I found a new format – 4-pack sealed (non-phantom).  I don’t know what it was about this format but I was pretty good at it.  My decks were always 3+ colors but each card was important and powerful.  Because 30-card decks were so small, you saw gates more often and it felt (I could easily be wrong) like your mana troubles were actually less prevalent than in 40-card decks.  The prize payout was also very good.  It was a swiss format, 4 packs and 2 tickets to enter.   2-1 got you three packs, meaning if you opened something worth 4 tix or more, you could easily play again since the 4th pack is Dragon’s Maze and they’re very cheap at this time of writing.  If you 3-0’ed the tournament, you got 7 packs.  It was a sweet deal and I never went 0-3, rarely went 1-2 (which got you two packs) and leaned closer to 3-0 in terms of average record. 

Things still looked up.  I was steadily increasing my card pool, enjoying Commander games on the side and buying a few singletons for that specific format.  My big mistake came when Modern Masters was released. 

Now, I am definitely one of those Magic players that think, rating be damned, “I’m better than most players”.  But the majority of Magic players think that and it is impossible for all of them to be right.  Now, I think I’m okay.  But part of me still thinks I can 2-1/3-0 almost any non-fast draft format.  I joined Modern Masters drafts for 25 tickets, and 3-0’ed my first one with w/b Rebels.  Foolishly being results-oriented, I had delusions of grandeur, thinking “that was easy, I’m gonna destroy this format.”   With my 4 packs, I joined another queue and subsequently lost in the first round.  That felt like a fluke, so I sold a few cards, bought two Modern Master’s packs and joined another draft.  That one I lost too. 

I was somewhat frustrated.  I didn’t have many tickets, but I had a ton of Ravnica block packs I was saving for four-pack sealed. “Whatever”, I thought and sold them to make my 25 tickets and joined another draft.  Still lost.  This kept going as I sold more and more of my cards.  I may have went 1-2 in one draft only, but lost in the one after. 

Next thing I knew I had no more booster packs of any set.  I had barely any mythics left, and one or two duals straggled in my binder.  What the hell happened? Modern Masters looked like so much fun, I saw so many videos, why was I losing?  I finally wised up and joined a phantom draft, hoping to start winning again.  I scraped a few tickets and drafted what I thought was a sick Rebels deck with multiple Bonesplitters and Sword of Light and Shadow

First round I went up against the mirror and when I saw the Sword in my opening hand, I had already thought to my sideboard.  But he came out quick with a Kithkin Greatheart into Avian Changeling on the play.  Ouch.  No matter. I have an Amrou Scout and my own Avian Changeling – I’ll stabilize then get a hit in with the sword and take over the game from there.  Except I never drew a fourth land.  “GG”

Game 2 I also missed my 4th land drop but my Avian Changelings plus Bonesplitter plus Test of Faith proved too quick for my opponent.

Game 3 I felt great again.  I had a Sword in my hand, two rebel searchers and a removal spell.  Again, never saw a 4th land and quickly died.

I tell this game in detail not because “I’m so unlucky for not drawing lands!” or as a token of why I was losing but because this was the turning point and it’s hard to forget.  After losing this game I had almost nothing of value outside of .05 cent rares and .03 uncommons.  I tried to think of a way to get my cards back – this was a position I wasn’t in for many, many years. 

I sold most of my standard rares, enough for a draft set and drafted.  First round loss. 

Sold more cards, drafted.  Lost again.

At this point the bot I was selling to would only give me 1.23 tickets for whatever I had to offer.  I dipped into a couple of reserved cards I had – the ones I used for commander for fun.  Singleton cards worth 2-4 tickets.  I managed to get enough tickets to buy four packs.  I was so blind.  Why did I draft when I could’ve joined four-pack sealed, the format I did the best in?

My hopes were high.  In only 3 out of 15 sealeds, did I come out in the red.  I opened my rares and built a Jund splash white deck that took advantage of a few gates and powerful rares.  I lost the first match to color-screw.  That’s okay, I’m playing four colors, I couldn’t be too surprised.  The second round was a three game ordeal I did not come out on top of.  Morale was low.  I could get two packs at most and I didn’t open anything decent enough to get more than a ticket out of.  Still, two packs was a start.  Except, I lost that round too. 

I had nothing.  Two tickets.  That’s it.  In desperation I started joining Momir 2-mans, hoping to hit a winning streak, win a few Return to Ravnica packs and join another sealed.  It never happened.  I won, then lost, then won, then lost, and lost some more, paying a little over market value to win my Ravnica packs. 

http://img.aegen.nl/OD/Upheaval.jpg

It was tough times.  I felt like I had one draw step left but no outs.  But I wasn’t going to concede.  What were my options?  I thought of my high points.  My many Sorins, dual lands, a planeswalker in each color, my ability to buy almost any card I wanted, and now I was checking bot by bot to see if any of them would give me enough to buy a sealed set.

This lasted around 3 weeks and then I had a strange epiphany.  What if I bought the sealed set? With money.  The concept was now so foreign to me since it had been so long since I last went into the Magic Online Store (not counting prereleases where I had to buy a guild mark).  It was my last ditch effort, a desperate man’s attempt to return to some kind of normalcy. 

I bought enough tickets to buy the packs off a bot and still have two ticket lefts for entry.  I joined the tournament.  Had decent rares.  Built a three-color splash a fourth deck.  This looked familiar.  I won the first match off the back of my rares.  One down, two to go.  My second opponent fell to a strangely curved out hand that had perfect mana each game.  If I lost now, I’d be a happy man.  But no, I 3-0’ed the tournament and closed Magic Online.  I had 7 packs.  I could sell one and join another sealed.  If I kept up a kind of loop I’d eventually open a money mythic and start the process all over again.  I went to sleep and joined a sealed tournament the next day.

I’ve won and 2-1’ed various 4-pack sealeds since that day.  While I haven’t opened that elusive money mythic, I do have a few dual lands in stock as well as some 2+ ticket mythics.  I have a draft set and could join another sealed if I wanted to.  But I’m waited for Rise of the Eldrazi and have yet to win past round 1 (I have no idea what’s going wrong, but I’m losing to everything with, what I imagine, are okay/good decks, worth at least one victory.  I’m making essentially the same mistake as before by losing and joining and losing and joining.  But my biggest mistake wasn’t greed or blindly spewing value.  No, my mistake was feeling entitled to win, to never spend money on the game I love so much, to win as much as I expected to.  I’ll be a little more careful now, but I’m going to focus more on having fun.  I love the fact that I was able to play and draft for so long basically for free but if I have to spend money that’s okay.  I spent money to make a Monoblack Pauper deck based on Chris Davis’ videos sans Serrated Arrows (6 tickets?!).  I’ve played four 2-mans and haven’t lost.  I think I found my constructed format until I can jump into standard.

I’m planning to make more videos for PureMTGO, not only draft videos – there’s enough of that and streamers, but something a little more involved.  Drafting and Design, where I critique/talk about the design of whatever I’m drafting at the moment.  I’ll start with M14, as it’s a Core Set. 

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/mm/mm166_backToBasics.jpg

In the meantime, I’ll be drafting, I’ll be having fun, which is what really matters.    

 

13 Comments

Hopefully you can learn from by Bazaar of Baghdad at Thu, 07/25/2013 - 16:04
Bazaar of Baghdad's picture

Hopefully you can learn from losing an MTGO collection what causes many to tragically lose home, wife, and kids on through gambling addictions. It's definitely good to take and pause and gain some perspective. By writing this, it sounds as if you've matured somewhat, but just be careful. Set limits.

Yeah, absolutely. This sounds by Psychobabble at Thu, 07/25/2013 - 19:20
Psychobabble's picture

Yeah, absolutely. This sounds like 1,000s of stories of poker addicts, except they usually end up with the person homeless and with a crack addiction. The fundamental dangers is still there though - chasing losses, feeling entitled to win, spewing value and sending good money after bad. It wasn't mentioned in the article, but I have no doubt that tilt played some part of the above story, it's such an EV killer. You gotta recognise your limits, set rules for yourself and realise when you're on tilt and should step away rather than trying for just one more event.

Definitely Agree by toolazy2stand at Thu, 07/25/2013 - 20:11
toolazy2stand's picture

Yeah, you guys are totally right. After re-reading my drafts a couple of times, the behaviors I described were like those of someone with a compulsion problem. I definitely see how wanting just "one more win!" can outweigh 20 losses and trying so hard to get there. But, things aren't as bad as they seem. I mean, my collection is laughable now, but I'm enjoying myself, win or lose, and I think that's more important than my attempts to never spend money on a game I really love.

-@MTGRookie

I don't know, man, the line by Kumagoro42 at Thu, 07/25/2013 - 21:39
Kumagoro42's picture

I don't know, man, the line "if I have to spend money that’s okay" scares me. A lot. No, it's not okay. And it's not the solution to anything. How can it be? I really don't get your point: your mistake was trying not to spend money? What if you had? Just assume that you didn't care, that you never actually sold cards or boosters to draft, buying everything from the store instead: Do you think you wouldn't have lost all those tournaments in that case?

And by the way, you fail to recognize something. If you put $10 in the game, and after a year of successful drafting you end up with $1000, then after another year of unsuccessful drafting you end up with zero, you didn't lose $10. You lost $990. Because you had that at some point. (More correctly, you lost/had what a retailer would pay you for a $1000 collection, which is still way more than $10). Those were real money, money you earned in digital form (but aren't all money digital nowadays?), through using your time and skills, that are in fact worth money.

"Fun" is a very relative concept. There are people who have fun doing their job (it happened to me several times over the course of my life). Then what, they shouldn't care being paid for it because they had fun?

I'm not quite sure what the by Psychobabble at Thu, 07/25/2013 - 22:03
Psychobabble's picture

I'm not quite sure what the point here is, but if you're trying to say that it's dangerous to have "going infinite" or "not spending money" on mtgo as your main goal in playing then I 100% agree with you. People who get so worked up about trading cards, or going infinite, or EV of events because they want to not spend any money are kind of missing the point imo. You should play for fun and regard the financial side of things as a bonus. Set yourself a financial limit of how many events etc. you're willing to pay for over a time frame, and if you get to play more than through winnings - bonus. if you don't, play less, or play free games.

I can easily see what you're by toolazy2stand at Thu, 07/25/2013 - 22:13
toolazy2stand's picture

I can easily see what you're saying and I think it speaks to what I mean that it's "okay" for me to spend money now. It's all about perspective. My compulsion to keep winning was to recoup my losses because of the dread I felt when it came to actually spending money. I no longer feel that dread - it's all about having fun. So maybe I'll lose anyway and I'll lose a lot, but a loss won't come with that compulsion to play again and try again because I need to win. I'd much rather lose 5 times over a span of 5 weeks rather than one night - then I'm "losing money" at a much more manageable rate.

Basically, if I'm thinking of this game as "how much $ can I win/extract from this game" that's not the perspective I want to be having. And I think I'm farther away from that than I was in the beginning.

**that's to Kumagoro, I was writing this response and didn't see Psychobabble's response.

But as it happens, that was by Psychobabble at Thu, 07/25/2013 - 22:22
Psychobabble's picture

But as it happens, that was pretty much what I was saying anyway :)

MTG is a hobby by TurBor at Sat, 08/03/2013 - 19:05
TurBor's picture

The comparison with a job is incorrect, as most people have jobs in order to earn money, while the vast majority of MTG players do it in order to have fun. Like many other hobbies, MTG requires an investment of time and money (and it's far from the top of the ranking for "most expensive hobbies" at that). Therefore, the mistake I see in the story is in fact trying not to spend money, or more exactly, to regard playing magic as a for-profit activity (the profit being measured in free drafts) instead of a for-fun activity, as this leads to the "must-win" pressure which can then turn into the ruinous "must-recoup-losses" attitude. Consider a person spending money on an online game or on some obscure trading card game without tournament activity. There isn't even a theoretical possibility of "recouping" the money spent, much less a chance of earning anything, so it is a straight trade: money for the fun of playing the game. The fact that in MTG there is a possibility to get substantial prizes shouldn't change this. When I sit down at a FNM draft, I write off the starting fee as "expenses - hobby". Surely I'm glad if I open a money rare or win some free packs, but this is not the reason I play in the first place and so is a nice bonus, not a part of some value calculation.

My plan for easy tickets is by greyes3 at Thu, 07/25/2013 - 22:35
greyes3's picture

My plan for easy tickets is wait for Master's Edition events. Then wreck fools.

never pay for packs by cavegoat at Fri, 07/26/2013 - 08:01
cavegoat's picture

i concur, i spent a fortune on packs and draft and leagues and mtgo (and paper, but thats still around!) i gave up, i vowed to never pay the store again. i redeemed all i could, and the complete sets of tsp went to the bots. now i am cutting everything i can, went from 2000+ rares to now only a couple hundred left. i dont think im going to sell off my sea's or 1 fow, but everything else i said was off limits was checked off to be 'for trade'

the worst part is the money that i wouldnt sell while it was standard isnt worth a fraction of what id get for it now, kinda sad, but important to know that virtual is not tangible and even more important, the only cost wotc is going to get from me is just my time and opportunity.

I am a little confused how by Paul Leicht at Fri, 07/26/2013 - 10:49
Paul Leicht's picture
5

I am a little confused how you managed to Brainstorm with Jace during ROE drafts.

I treat my digital cards by RexDart at Fri, 07/26/2013 - 10:55
RexDart's picture

I treat my digital cards exactly like I do my paper cards. I hold onto the ones that I intend to use regularly in decks. I watch prices and try to sell Standard cards when they reach that absurd peak (like Sword of War and Peace did last spring, for example), re-buying later if I want it for Legacy.

I don't sell off cards to draft, either in paper or online. I know plenty of people at my local game store who sell anything good they open to the shop owner to fund a draft, and predictably those people have lousy collections despite having played for years -- their ZEN fetchlands that would now be worth a nice chunk of change were all wasted funding some INN/DKA draft that netted them nothing but garbage.

The bot system makes it very easy to cannibalize a portion of your collection for some other purpose, and you'll get a better % of value than from paper cards shipped to a buylist. That's very convenient but also very dangerous, depending how you use it. I've done that myself to move out of Modern pre-MMA and shore up my Legacy collection. If you're smart about it, you don't lose any value doing that, because your success in managing a digital collection through market trend-watching doesn't depend on actually winning games of Magic.

Cashing out rares for boosters to draft with is just throwing money down a well. If I want to draft, I just buy the tix for the packs (or in paper magic, just pay the cash) and treat it like a completely difference experience I'm paying for.

Modern Masters Almost Did That To Me by Jyalt at Fri, 07/26/2013 - 12:35
Jyalt's picture

I had a similar experience, but I decided to skip out on Modern Masters entirely. After losing a quick 50 tickets in two drafts, it was obvious to me the format was really fun, really complex, and had a terrible value return. It reminded me a lot of Lorwyn where you could synergy-screwed in addition to getting mana and drop-curve screwed. I could not believe so many people signed up for the 45 ticket PTQ in that format. That's like taking a $50 bill and lighting it on fire.

While I didn't dip too far down into stuff I wanted to keep, I did have a losing streak that cost me, precipitated by modern masters. Just got back out of that hole by playing standard with a decent deck, which unfortunately looks to be rotating soon.