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By: MarcosPMA, nn
Nov 04 2014 12:00pm
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Hello and welcome to another edition of Sealed Success!  As GP: San Antonio inches closer and closer I've been playing more Standard than normal and drifting away from Limited for the time being.  I've been in a rut though and can't really move forward until I get some Sorins to play with, so I might be playing a bit more Magic Online until then.

My computer was acting up for a bit this weekend and that left me with just my phone to check the various sites I do daily and came across an interesting post while on Twitter:

 

 

I can understand his frustration, especially when you've worked for X prize and receive slightly more than half of that back.  I've had this happen to me this past week as well, although I was nowhere near earning the amount of prizes he earned.  What happened was that some events had become compromised and they were finished on the spot and players were reimbursed their entry fee and cards if they were in a Limited event.  Normally this would be fine, but it shows a disconnect between how players and WOTC views prize support.

If you have seen my videos, I usually reference how many packs I've won as I move from match to match.  When I've done Sealed DE's, I always say "I've won 3 packs" after having 2 match wins, "I've broken even in the event" after winning 3 matches, and "I've won 11 packs" if I manage to go 4-0.  I believe that players tie their wins with packs.  So if you're in a 4 round DE and you start 2-0, you feel as you're entitled to at least 3 packs when it's all said and done.  After all, you won those matches right?  You put in the work and deserve the reward.  If you're 3-0 in an event then regardless of how that event ends, you should still get that many packs because no matter what happens in the next round, the very minimum you end up with is whatever a 3-1 gets.  Imagine if you're working an hourly job and you're scheduled for 8 hours and you earn X dollars an hour.  If you work 3 hours and they tell you go clock out and go home, then while you didn't earn what you expected (X times 8), you know you still got something (X times 3).  I think this is how most Magic Online players view events: for every match win you get X packs and that's set in stone no matter what.

How I believe WOTC views prize support is this: When the event finishes, you get X prize based on X points.  It doesn't necessarily matter what you do during the event, all that matters is what the records show after the event is done.  If the event is cancelled or ends before the required finish, then your record might as well be 0-0 because you get nothing.  All this isn't to say that the players are right and that WOTC is wrong, it's to say that there are two different viewpoints at work going on here.  So, what is the solution here?  Is there a solution?  The best solution is just to limit the amount of events that have to be cancelled so that players know whatever they do during an event will hold up in the end.  I personally believe that if you're not going to hold prizes won against a player if they submit a request for compensation (example: you encounter deck submission bug during draft but win the 8-4), then it doesn't make sense for you to not grant any prizes that a player might have earned if you have to cancel an event.  At the very least you'd say to your customers: "if you play an event you will get prizes regardless of what happens" and that's something that can go a long way to build support.  What do you think?  If an event gets canceled, do you think Wizards should give back entry fee and any prizes won?

With all that said, lets crack some packs!

KTK 8-4 Draft

KTK 4 Pack Sealed

Conclusion

There is another 4 Pack Sealed that I recorded, but issues with my main laptop (I'm writing this from a different one) only let me upload these 2 sets of videos without pushing my luck.  Regardless of deck submission error, I do think my draft deck was decent, but it wasn't good enough to take the draft.  It felt too fair for me and there wasn't this great curve or bomb I could exploit to turn games in my favor.  I guess you could say that I drafted the open clan but the clan was not strong enough to be taken advantage of due to it being open.  Sometimes an open deck doesn't pan out in power level even though drafting it is the correct decision. 

I felt my 4 Pack Sealed had a great chance to go 3-0.  Good mana and bombs is all you can ask for in this format and I felt we had that but lost to an even better deck.  I've been thinking about game 2 of round 2 for a few days and I can see myself doing the same thing again, but I should have held Abzan Charm rather than use it to draw 2 cards.  I think the only choices I have at that spot are to either use it on the Chief of the Edge, or to hold it.  Drawing cards doesn't help me win that turn and since no matter what I do I can only win in 2 turns, so there's no reason to use the charm if I'm not using it offensively.  I chose the worst of the possible plays I had and it cost me the game.  I did make a mistake, but not for the reasons I thought I made it, and that's the important lesson here.  If you know why you lost a game, then you can use to that better yourself and avoid a similar situation in the future.

If you have any comments, questions, or concerns leave them in the comments section below!  I won't promise anything for next week, my laptop is not reliable at the moment and my other laptop is a Google Chromebook, so no Magic Online here.  Hopefully my laptop gets its act together and starts working fine by midweek so I can record something.

Thank you for reading/watching!