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By: one million words, Pete Jahn
Mar 27 2009 12:35am
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Musings on Classic Sets

Wizards is making a ton of announcements and improvements to MTGO this week. They have given us free tournaments, NIX TIX & NIX PAX drafts, CCC drafts are back, Wizards has extended the time for some formats, you can get free textless promos for spending money, etc. etc. Hamtastic should have this all covered in his State of MTGO article.
 
I won’t stomp on his topics. I’ll just say that it is all good stuff.
 
I do want to talk about the changes to Classic sets, the Classic set rotations and the MVW and MEDII last chance events. 
 
How Many Formats Can We Handle?
 
Wizards is taking Mirage, Visions and Weatherlight off the shelves. They are also talking about restricting the time during which other Classic sets, like Tempest block , will be available in the store. I am not sure whether Tempest draft queues will be available while the packs are unavailable.  
 
That’s probably a good thing.
 
The supply of drafters is not unlimited. It is not high enough to have all the different queues fire often enough. For many queues, the number of players can gradually rise to 4 or so, then oscillate up and down for a bit, then fall back to zero.  People can sit in these queues for hours without getting to play. I have.
 
In general, though, if I want to draft, I will often enter whatever queue is closest to firing. In my account, right now, I have packs for 10E, MVW, MEDII, MEDI, CCC, AAC and Tempest. When I want to draft, I will check out the queues for any with more than 4 players. I generally don’t care what format – I’ll play 321Swiss or 4-3-2-2, and pretty much any block for which I have packs. I suspect that I am not unique in that, although others may have a greater liking for 8-4 or the like.
 
The problem is that, if there are too many options, some formats may never hit the 4 player mark. If they don’t, players like me won’t fill the additional four slots, and the queue won’t fire.  
 
The same thing is true, to a lesser extent, for constructed queues. Fewer players are likely to have decks (and have the skill & practice with those decks) for several different formats, but having too many formats can make getting the queues to fire far more difficult. 
 
Here’s an example of what I mean. Eight player Swiss sealed queues have been up for a month  or two now. Alara block sealeds do fire, fairly often. MEDII Nix Tix queues fire as well, fairly frequently since they became NIX TIX. Tempest sealed 8man events, and MVW (even NIX TIX) almost never fired.   In the draft room, the Tempest drafts are few and far between.
 
Another bit of proof: last week, MEDII drafts fired all the time. MVWs fired once in a great while. A fair number of 10E drafts also happened. This week, CCC drafts are back, and RGD NIX PAX drafts have started. This morning, I checked recent draft activity.   Here’s what fired, over the last 5 hours.
 
AAC – 24
CCC – 6
RGD - 3
MED2 – 2
10E – 1
 
No MVW. 10E way down.   No Tempest. The number of drafters is not infinite. Instead, it is fixed, and the critical equation is
 
        [number of drafters]/[number of formats] * [preference for format x] = ?
 
If the number if greater than 8, you have a draft.  If not, you have sitting in the queue.
 
Personally, I hate sitting in the queue. (Hey – I had an interesting typo there. I guess I hate sh#tting in the queue, too.)
 
Mirage, Visions & Weatherlight Last Chance PEs
 
On Sunday, March 22nd, Wizards ran four NIX TIX MVW PEs. They were staggered throughout the day. I wanted to play in these, because I wanted the cards. In general, the payback for opening MVW cards is poor, but I had two factors going for me. First, the prize payout was pretty damn good. Top 32 got a draft set, and it went up from there. Second – and this one is personal – I like the artwork on some of the Mirage lands, and I have almost enough to use them in decks. (Pro tip – as in, I got this tip from a couple pros – make sure all your basic lands have the same picture. That way, if you have to reveal your hand -Duress, (Thoughtsieze), whatever – you won’t accidentally play an unrevealed land and give away any extra info.)
 
Last weekend was all about Magic. I was working with a local judge Friday night, and I ran a large Standard paper tournament on Saturday. That pretty much killed the entire day. I couldn’t even get in a draft beforehand, and we didn’t get home until late. 
 
Anyway, I was able to play Sunday. The events happened at 3am, 9am,  3pm and 11pm, local time, IIRC. After getting home from the tourney at about 10pm, then getting dinner, there was no way I could play in the 3am event. I did enter the 9am  tourney, and was still in T8 contention by the time the afternoon event rolled around.   The 11pm – well, I had to be up by 5am for work. Even if I pulled an all-nighter – a poor option when you have serious work to do – odds are the tourney would still have been running by the time I had to leave for work. Besides, I don’t win matches when I fall asleep at the keyboard, and that happens after about 20 hours of MTGO.  
 
I could waste a bunch of bytes on my card pool, my deck and my matchups, but this is a dead format, so I’ll skip it. Besides, I play MVW maybe once every two months, so I know barely enough not to block flankers with a River Boa.   
 
I was looking for money cards, and cards I needed for Classic. The big ones were Lion’s Eye Diamond, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Enlightened Tutor, Crystal Vein, Vampiric Tutor, (Natural Selection), Null Rod, Cursed Totem, maybe Abeyance and Thunderbolt.   
 
One card I did have a reasonable chance of opening was Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is a common, but it is a $3.50 common. It is solid in Pauper. I want some.
 
I opened nothing on my list, and zero Thunderbolts. However, I lost my match in rounds 4, 5 and 6 because my opponent hit me with Thunderbolt to the head. I finished 29th, IIRC, and won one draft set.
 
Wizards was very careful to structure the prizes in terms of draft sets. The winner and second place finishers got complete sets of cards, but everyone else got some multiple of draft sets. Wizards is also offering MVW NIX TIX queues. They want these packs to be opened to get the cards into the card pool.  One major objective for these events, from Wizards’ perspective, is to get cards into the card pool, so that players can get the cards necessary to play constructed.  This is a bigger concern with Classic sets like Mirage than new sets like Shards or Conflux. Players are drafting those sets like crazy, so plenty of bots have plenty of copies.
 
For Mirage, not so much. Before these events, I looked for Lion’s Eye Diamond, a Classic staple from Mirage.   MTGOTraders online store was sold out. I found two during a quick check of other online sites.   Just two. I want a playset. (I also want piles of money, etc.) After the event, however, MTGOTraders had one, and the other sites had 5, plus one foil copy. 
 
It’s not enough, though. I have not seen a Null Rod for sale for quite a while.   (Some bot might have them, but I am just checking online sites. Having MTGO running while I am writing can be distracting. 
 
Let’s crunch some numbers and see exactly what the PEs have introduced into the system.
 
The events had 55, 48, 57 and 43 players. Not a lot, but 203 is not insignificant. Each player cracked a Mirage Tournament Pack, a Visions booster and a Weatherlight booster. That means that, given 203 players each opening 3 Mirage rares,  a total of 609 were opened. Since Mirage has 110 rares in total, that means that 5.5 copies of each rare were opened.   (Okay, obviously no one opened a half card – and that number does not include foils. I don’t know the number, but foils seem to appear in maybe one in ten packs, and they seem to be evenly distributed between rares, uncommons and commons. If that guess is right, Visions, for example, probably produced 20 rares, of which maybe seven were rares. That doesn’t significantly affect the numbers listed below.) 
                  

The PE
Total Opened
Copies of Each
 
Rares
Uncom.
Com.
Rares
Uncom.
Com.
Mirage
609
1827
5278
6
17
48
Visions
203
609
2233
4
11
36
Weatherlight
203
609
2233
4
11
36

 
What that means is that the tournament added 5-6 Lion’s Eye Diamonds and one playset of Null Rods to the available cards online. They just didn’t add them to my collection. 
 
Of course, the events did not just produce the cards that were opened. The events also added a lot of prize packs to the online environment. As I noted above, the prize payout was generous, and it was structured so that every prize was in terms of MVW draft sets.   First and second got complete sets of cards, but third and fourth got five draft sets each, and the numbers dropped down to 17th-32nd getting a draft set each.   Since the prizes are in draft sets, and the NIX TIX MVW queues are open, I am going to assume that all the draft sets were used in drafts, either directly or by someone buying them, eventually,  to draft with. The prizes totaled 54 draft sets per event, or 212 overall. That’s enough draft sets to supply 26.5 drafts. Call it 26 – a few packs will sit in dealer or bot inventory.  
                  

+26 Drafts
Total Opened
Copies of Each
 
Rares
Uncom.
Com.
Rares
Uncom.
Com.
Mirage
208
624
2288
2
6
21
Visions
208
624
2288
4
11
37
Weatherlight
208
624
2288
4
11
37

 
In addition to the opened cards, the drafts will pay out in packs as well. I haven’t seen any MVW 8-4s, and 4-3-2-2s seem to outnumber 321Swiss drafts, so the average prize support will be 11 packs, and two players will be short a Weatherlight pack.   I suspect that those players will buy the additional Weatherlight pack, many from the store. (Remember, if they buy a couple packs and some TIX, they can get a textless  Lightning Helix...) So, let’s assume that each of these drafts produces four more draft sets. That will produce 13 drafts, which will produce prizes enough to produce seven more, then four, then two, then one.  In total, the prize payout will produce enough packs, over time, to provide product for over fifty drafts.   That’s a lot of cards. Here’s the estimated total.
                  

Total cards
Total Opened
Copies of Each
 
Rares
Uncom.
Com.
Rares
Uncom.
Com.
Mirage
1,033
3,099
9,942
9
18
90
Visions
627
1,881
6,897
13
34
111
Weatherlight
627
1,881
6,897
13
34
111

 
Plus, of course, one complete foil set and one complete non-foil set given out to the first and second place finishers, respectively. That means that the MVW sealed events added just under three playsets of Lion’s Eye Diamonds to the card pool.   It should have also added over 100 Thunderbolts. That should help the Pauper players a bit.
 
I drafted the packs. Monday night, I was getting ready to log off and head for bed, but I noticed that the MVW 4-3-2-2 queue was at 7. I jumped in, intending to rare draft and hit the hay.   I got a foil Maro and some random stuff I may use in casual play. No money cards, except for a Crypt Rats - Pauper has driven the price for CRs to over $2.00.   I did get a second turn Empyrial Armor in Weatherlight.  
 
I drafted a 5 color “special” – as in Special Olympics sort of “special.” My first round opponent was rated 1885. You know how this goes. Game one I dropped Maro and Panther Warriors while he was mana screwed, and a random Ivory Charm meant his attempt to trade a 1/1 and 2/2 for the Panther Warriors failed. Game two I was mana screwed, and he dropped a couple enchantments on a little white dude, and cast a Rogue Elephant.   I had nothing but a 1/1 flier, (Serrated Biskellion), a Quicksand, a plains and a forest. He attacked, I chumped the enchanted dude and used a counter and the Quicksand to off the elephant.  Now I was at 10, with two lands, facing a 4/5. However, this was MVW draft, and I had Empyrial Armor. I ripped a Plains, auraed up the flier, and won the game. Then I went to bed.
 
It was a pretty good reminder of just how strange and random MVW drafting was.   Still, I expect that I will buy another Weatherlight pack to complete my draft set, and have at it again. 
 
Irrational optimism – I gotz it.
 
Overall, I think it is time to retire Mirage, at least for a while. Before the NIX TIX events, you had to wait a long, long time to see a MVW draft fire, despite the fact that opening any one of a half dozen cards would pay for a couple drafts. 
 
Masters Edition II
 
MEDII is also leaving the store. I have been playing in a lot of NIX TIX drafts, and a fair number of NIX TIX sealed events. You see, I was one of those idiots that bought three special MEDII packages, which meant I got an MED I draft set for free. 
 
I’m still waiting for an MEDI draft to get close to firing. 
 
On the other hand, I have now played in a pretty large number of MED events. I have opened 2 Taigas, a Necropotence and a FOIL Mana Crypt (Note: I will probably part with that shiny Crypt – anyone want to trade it for an Underground Sea or Tundra?) I also had more packs than I started with.
 
That has finally ended, but only because I started doing stupid stuff. For example, yesterday, before going to work, I entered a sealed queue. I figured I could win round one, then wait for round two to start and just concede, then lose round two to timing out. That would let me get to work just barely on time. 
 
In practice, the plan bombed. I lost round one, and dropped. That is the first time I have not won any packs in a sealed 8man.
 
The sealed 8man queues have an insane payout. They are Swiss rounds, and cost 5 packs to join. The payout is 9 packs for three wins, 5 packs for two, and 2 for one win. Just one player goes home with nothing.   It’s pretty much money for nothing – although I have recently faced more 1800+ rated players in those events than in anything outside of limited PE Top 8s, so it may no longer be quite such a sweat deal for folks like me.
 
Speaking of good deals, the big MED / MED II Championship is this weekend. I think the last chance qualifiers are up now. I’m not qualified, and am not trying. I will be judging the StarCity Games $5k in Indianapolis at that time. If you play paper Standard, and are anywhere within driving distance, go there. It will be good times. If not, get qualified for the MED/MEDII Championship. The first prize is a foil set of both MED and MEDII. Just the duals plus FoW are worth over a grand – the whole double set is mucho bucks. 
 
I’m almost sorry now that I committed to the $5k, but I did commit. I’ll let someone else win this one. J
 
PRJ
 
“one million words” on MTGO – or just raise your hand and call “judge!” at the SCG $5k in Indie. 
 
 

5 Comments

Just an FYI, I recently by ImpinAintEasy (not verified) at Sat, 03/28/2009 - 00:32
ImpinAintEasy's picture

Just an FYI, I recently pulled a foil crypt in a draft and was only able to get 25 tickets out of it, so I doubt you will get Tundra or Sea. But you know those foil nuts, sometimes they will pay anything.

i bought a farewell pack and by Anonymous (not verified) at Sat, 03/28/2009 - 03:43
Anonymous's picture

i bought a farewell pack and pulled an Underground Sea in the fourth pack. :)

i still don't know whether i'll hold onto it or trade it for tix to support my standard game.

I opened 54 MED2 packs last by cdiegor at Sat, 03/28/2009 - 15:53
cdiegor's picture
4

I opened 54 MED2 packs last week and I got ZERO duals... (got a second pick Underground Sea though)

Funny by Rerepete at Sat, 03/28/2009 - 18:33
Rerepete's picture

I just decided to crack 2 packs last week and got a Tundra...lucky me, I guess.....

Edit: What would someone pick over an Underground Sea?? Other than a foil dual...

Foil Necropotence maybe? Or by spg at Tue, 03/31/2009 - 11:11
spg's picture

Foil Necropotence maybe? Or maybe they didn't care about the rares so much, and just wanted to do well in the draft?