Hammie’s The State of the Program for February 8th
This series is an ongoing tribute to Erik “Hamtastic” Friborg.
In the News this Week:
Gatecrash Prerelease and Release Event Here!: The online Gatecrash prerelease events start February 8
th at 10:00am PDT. The prereleases will be the same as the RtR prereleases: you choose your guild and get 5 normal Gatecrash boosters plus one guild specific booster. Details
here.
Shocklands to return in Dragon’s Maze: Wizards has announced some details for the Dragons Maze paper prereleases. The prerelease packs will be guild specific. You will choose a guild, and get the guild-specific booster of that guild (like the ones in the RtR and Gatecrash prerelease packs.) You will also get a “secret” pack from an overlapping guild from the other set, and 4 Dragon’s Maze boosters. For example, if you choose the Boros pack, you will get a Boros guild booster and a guild booster from RtR that shares a color with Boros (in other words, not Golgari.)
The announcement also mentioned one other interesting fact: the Dragon’s Maze boosters will not include basic lands. Instead, the basic land slot will contain either one of the ten Gates, or a shockland. Presumably, the shocklands will be more “rare” than the gates. This is great news. From a limited standpoint, being able draft a decent mana base will be critical. From a constructed format, this should help ensure that Standard and Modern manabases remain affordable. Nice. Details
here.
Tournaments Froze Last Sunday: Last weekend, Wizards hosted some special online PTQs open only to players with silver and gold pro player status. Apparently, this caused some problems, and some events froze. The events had to be terminated, and refunds were issued. The PTQs did finish, and Wizards did post the results and decklists.
MTGO Cube is Here: As Wizards promised, during the slack time between the paper prerelease and the Gatecrash online prerelease, we will be drafting the MTGO Cube. The cube is not powered this time around – it reverts to the build used at the Community Cup Championship last year. Details
here.
Redemption Costs to Rise with Gatecrash: Beginning with Gatecrash and going forward, the cost to convert a set from digital to paper will go from $5 to $25. This is five-fold increase in the costs of redemption. Details and explanation are
here. I discuss the effects in the opinion section. A lot of people are also sounding off i
n this thread. One interesting idea is the “golf” approach in the comments.
Hasbro Hiring MTGO Programmer / Managers: Hasbro posted a couple of job openings related to MTGO this week:
Software Development Manager, MTGO Applications and
Software Development Manager, MTGO Server & Infrastructure. Wizards has also posted several other listings in the last few weeks, including
Sr Technology Project Manager - Magic Digital,
Sr. Business Manager, Magic Online, and
QA Manager - Software - Magic Digital. I don’t know if this represents a shake-up at Wizards, if they are ramping up for a bigger push on the program, or if Wizards had frozen hiring last year, so the pent up openings all appeared once the freeze ended. I tried to dig into this, and I can’t find any evidence of a bloodbath late last year. All the people I knew who were working on MTGO at Wizards are still there, according to their LinkedIn profiles. Of course, that might just mean I don’t know where to look, or who to check. If anyone does have access to an org chart for the MTGO staff from last summer, I’d love to know if those jobs existed, and who filled them.
New Trigger Policy: Once again, Wizards has tweaked the paper world rules for triggers. They seem to be getting this closer to right every time. The old version had problems. The changed versions did, too. To use sets as an analogy, lapsing triggers was Mirrodin with a broken mechanic (affinity) that sounded good at first. The next version (don’t tell, don’t happen) was, like Kamigawa, a bit foreign and hard to understand for most players, but with some stuff the rules lawyers could abuse. That makes the new version Ravnica, which seems about right.
Concerns about the Pro Tour Gravy Train: Brian Kibler wrote an
article about the problems with grinding GPs to stay on the Pro Tour gravy train. This isn’t just whining – both Kibler and LSV have stated that they cannot do the travelling necessary to stay on the train next year, because they cannot afford the time and expense. This is a real thing, and Helene Bergeot and Aaron Forsythe have both been discussing this with pros on twitter and elsewhere. The article has a hundred responses, just hours after going live, and that seems to be growing.
The issue is fascinating, with so many levels. Pros like Kibler – who writes, makes videos, tweets and streams – are incredibly popular. Wizards would lose a major ambassador if he is less involved. On the flip sides, Pro Tours of over 400 players are problematic, and any changes to award more invites make for bigger Pro Tours. Having more Pro Tours each year does not solve the problem. More importantly, having so many more GPs has been really successful in so many ways. Sometime, I will spend a couple hundred words discussing this – not this week. I will just close with some interesting info.
Tweet from @SethBurn: Serious question: Have we ever done a serious study of what drives GP attendance?
Reply from Aaron Forsythe @mtgaaron: Yes. Pro Points and money were both near the bottom. Most of it was "there is a big Magic event happening.
Round Three of the Classic Quarter Invitational Starting Soon: The next round will start shortly. Registration closes March 2
nd, at midnight. Registration is different this time around – it will now use Gatherling.com, which is becoming increasingly common for constructed PREs. Details
here.
HammyBot: Still here! HammyBot was created to sell the late Erik Friborg’s MTGO collection to raise money for his widow and son. HammyBot is a great way to get cards while supporting the family of someone who supported the community. Here’s an update on the Bot, plus a note on a cool card that I saw on HammyBot.
Cards left on HammyBot: 28,180
TIX raised so far: 5,359
Cool HammyBot card of the week: no single card. I just took 2 TIX and went shopping. I bought old stuff – stuff I didn’t have, but have thought about either for Legacy or Commander. Here’s what I got:
That’s for donating just 2 TIX to a good cause.
Opinion Section: The Effects of Adjusting Redemption
Redemption is simple: you collect a complete set of an in print set and pay Wizards the redemption fee. Wizards removes the set from your account, and sends you the equivalent set of paper cards. The result is that the MTGO card pool shrinks and the paper card pool grows.
The effects of redemption are complex. Really complex. I have spent a couple days trying to build a model, or even a decent diagram, of how everything interconnects. I keep coming up with more linkages, and more interrelated effects.
We have to remember a few things. First of all, MTGO is the tail, not the dog. Wizards makes the vast, vast majority of its money in Magic through booster sales to casual players, not online. Seriously.
A Wizards employee who would know told me that almost 99% of all sanctioned Magic matches were played at regular REL, not competitive or professional. (This was before you could sanction casual events.) Another told me that there were a hundred, maybe a thousand casual players for every player that played tournament Magic. The kitchen table is king. Casual players buy the majority of all booster packs.
The online world is much smaller than the paper world. A few years back, my best, albeit rough, estimates of MTGO had maybe 50k players with active accounts, including casual players. At the same time, the number of paper players actively playing in sanctioned tournaments was over 100k, and the number of total players, including casual players, was in the millions. The paper player base has doubled a couple times since then, while MTGO has grown, but more slowly. Paper is still much more important to Wizards than MTGO.
In Madison, with a total population of 500k or so, we were firing paper Legacy events regularly. On MTGO, drawing from the entire world’s population of 7 billion, Legacy cannot attract 16 players most of the time.
Point one: paper is more important than MTGO.
To keep the paper world working, Wizards has to keep all the parts of the paper world happy enough to stay in the game. That includes the players, but keeping the players happy has to include providing places for them to play. Stores play a critical part. They introduce players to the game, hold local tournaments, and give players a place to play casually. All of this is critically important to Wizards, and Wizards has made fantastic exertions to keep store healthy and prosperous, event in a down economy. Moving prereleases into stores and the huge push for FNM are just two examples. Magic is doing better than ever before, partly because Wizards has supported brick and mortar stores.
Wizards has other links in the chain it needs to keep happy. One key link is distributors, that supply the local stores. Wizards needs them to make sure that stores have product. The distributors will do that, happily, so long as WotC product make up a significant part of their business. If that business falls off, then the relative importance of Wizards needs will also fall. By comparison, the distributors are not going to spend as much time and effort on a independent maker of tiddly-winks. The distributors may well carry the winks, but that supplier is not going to be one of their top ten interests. It is in Wizards best interest to be a major concern of the distributors, so that Wizards can rely on the distributor to get its products into stores.
Is this relevant? It is – if redemption is cutting into the amount of product flowing through the distributors. The question is whether redemption cuts into the flow of boosters.
Does it? How could it?
Well, let’s assume that a store is going to host an event, and wants to be able to sell singles. That store figures it needs four playsets of everything, over and above what it can buy from players in its store. In the past, the store would have to crack boosters to get those cards. Let’s use Return to Ravnica as an example. The set has 15 mythics and 53 rares. Using the estimate of one mythic per eight packs, you will need to open 120 packs to get one copy of each Mythic. 120 packs would have a bit over two sets of rares. Four playsets of everything means opening 1,920 packs. Assuming the store is paying something like $2.50, wholesale, for packs, that is a total cost of $4,700.
On the other hand, right now redemption packs are selling for about $130 on eBay. Sixteen copies of each card means 16 redemption packs, which could cost just $2,080. That is a savings of over half, if you just buy redemption packs on eBay. Stores with strong links to online dealers can probably save even more.
Point number two: right now, it is a lot cheaper to get paper singles by buying redemption packs on eBay than to open boosters.
All of this has another impact – it hurts singles dealers and suppliers. In the past, a lot of stores bought their singles through singles dealers, or contracted out their singles sales to such dealers. The dealers bought and sold, often renting tables at PTQs and other events. These dealers are also critical to the success of Magic. Constructed events exist only because it is easy to get the singles you need to build your decks. This is equally true for casual players, who also buy a lot of singles. Redemption, as it exists now, has to be hurting all the dealers who do not get their card supply by buying redemption packs.
Is this a significant pain? That depends on whether the number of redemption packs is large enough to feed the demand. Remember that the number of paper players is much, much larger than the number of online players. Even with some players redeeming a lot of sets – and the forums seem to indicate that some players / dealers are redeeming hundreds of sets per month – that number may not be enough to meet demand. I don’t know. Wizards does – but they don’t share that data. Let’s look at it both ways.
First, let’s assume that the number of redemption packs is large enough to meet most of the demand for paper singles. This means that singles sellers will be able to buy most – or at least large chunks - of the cards they need via redemption packs. This will clearly have a negative impact on paper booster sales. It would also have a negative impact on paper traders, and would depress the prices of redeemable paper cards. This would impact paper drafters, since it would depress the prices they get for their cards. About the only positive impact would be that it should keep paper singles prices low.
I doubt that assumption is correct. Paper single prices are too high, and a lot of paper traders are doing a lot of business. That would not be true if there were enough redemption packs to go around.
The other alternative is that redemption packs form a small, but significant, portion of the total supply of new singles, with booster drafts and cracked packs making up the majority of the supply. Since the cost of obtaining inventory from drafters and cracked boosters is higher than buying redemption packs, those dealers who have a source of redemption packs have a real advantage. There is nothing wrong with having that advantage, if you are the store with it, but it probably pisses off the other stores and distributors quite a bit.
This second assumption – that redemption packs are not in large enough supply to be the major source for singles, but are common enough to seriously annoy those stores that don’t have a steady supply, seems more likely to be true, based on all the evidence I can see.
Note that Wizards does not have to eliminate redemption to mitigate this source of friction. The problem is not that there are two sources of cards: busting boosters and redemption. The problems is that, to get one copy of each card in RtR, you have to spend around $280* for boosters, or $130* for a redemption pack. Wizards could eliminate a lot of the friction this differential causes by narrowing the difference in cost. Cutting the cost of packs, or increasing the cost of redemption packs could both narrow the gap and mitigate the friction.
* quick reminder: I am estimating the wholesale cost of boosters to be $2.50. It could be less, especially if you buy cases by the pallet. I am also basing my cost of $130 per redemption set off a couple of recent closed eBay auctions – they might be unrepresentative. I don’t know – I don’t redeem and I don’t run a store.
Cheap singles via redemption has an impact on paper players. First, it depresses the cost of singles, which is good if you are a buyer and constructed player, and bad if you are selling off singles to pay for your drafts – or for any other reason.
Point number three: redemption has an impact on the paper world, and much of it is negative. The amount of damage, though, is directly proportional to the difference between the cost of getting singles by cracking packs verses redemption packs.
Now let’s switch this around and look at redemption from the point of view of the online economy. Redemption has impacts and effects here as well.
Before we go into that, however, let’s talk about the idea that redemption was created to reassure players that their digital items were safe investments, since they could always be turned back into paper if MTGO proved to be a bust. This is absolutely true. Back when MTGO was new, people were not used to spending money on digital objects. Nowadays, people spend real money on equipment in World of Warcraft, and even Farmville. They trust that digital objects will continue to exist. They also, generally, trust that Wizards will not turn the MTGO servers off. None of that was true in 2003, when MODO was created. Redemption really was a guarantee that spending money on digital objects was not stupid.
That was then. This is now. That rationale is no longer necessary. Today, redemption serves different purposes.
Good gawd – I just noticed that I am over 5,000 words, and I’ve barely started. I am going to have to cut a lot of topics. I won’t have time to talk about the impact of Mythics, the impact of redemption on future card value, assuming Wizards really grows the MTGO user base, etc. I’ll try to limit the digressions – even when the digressions are important.
Let’s look at what redemption does to the online economy. At the most basic level, it pulls cards out to the MTGO card pool. To be more specific, it pulls Mythics out of the card pool. Since you are redeeming entire sets, redemption removes a significant portion of all Mythics, less than half that percentage of rares, and an insignificant percentage of the commons and uncommons. Redemption lowers supply, especially the supply of mythics. The impact of this reduction is to significant raise the cost of Mythics, slightly raise the cost of rares, and have almost no impact on the price of commons and uncommons.
Some people have argued that Wizards is eliminating redemption. It is not – at least not yet. What it is doing is raising the price of redemption, which should reduce the demand for redemption. This should mean that fewer cards are redeemed / removed from the system. Having a larger supply of cards in the system should reduce the prices for cards. Assuming demand stays relatively constant, price should go down. However, that assumption may be overly simplistic.
The assumption that a reduction in redemption will hurt drafters is also overly simplistic. It is more complicated.
First of all, a reduction in redemption will mean that the number of Mythics left in the system will rise, relative to rares. This would not bring the price of Mythics down to where rares are now, but it could lessen the difference. This could have a positive impact on willingness of some players to invest in competitive decks. Players seem more willing to buy a Mythic that costs three times the price of the average rare, but not one that costs five or seven times the cost.
Second, a reduction in redemption should depress prices for all cards, especially Mythics. However, lower prices for all cards, coupled with a reduced discrepancy between Mythics and rares, could make constructed far more attractive. If it does, the result will be more constructed players entering events, more players going 4-0 or 3-1, and more packs entering circulation. Constructed events also pull more TIX out of circulation that drafts. All of this would tend to reduce the price for packs in TIX, since packs would be plentiful and TIX more scarce.
The impact of drafters would be harder to estimate. The odds are that the prices at which they could sell their leftovers would be down, at least for Mythics. However, the price for rares and uncommons could rise, if demand for constructed decks rose. Moreover, although the sale price of their leftovers would be lower, so would the price of packs. This might make drafting a lot cheaper (provided you did not buy your packs from the store.) Having both packs and leftovers cheaper might, or might not, be a wash, or drafters might come out a bit better off, or worse off.
We have had some experience with redemption cut-offs in the past. At one point, Wizards had problems with redemption, and shut it down for almost 6 months. The result was a result in the profitability of drafting, and a drop in the number of drafts. However, that was before 2 man constructed queues, and during, IIRC, a period where Standard was not very popular. Having a reduction in redemption during a very popular Standard format may have a different result.
Wizards has a lot of data on redemption. They know what happened years ago, when sets redeemed for one price, regardless of numbers. They know what happened to paper and online singles prices while redemption was offline. They also know how much product is flowing through distributors, and are probably getting lots of feedback from stores and dealers.
Wizards also has a lot of levers to adjust, in addition to tweaking the cost of redemption. They can also adjust prize payout, and the relative value of NIX TIX and NIX PAX queues. They can limit the number of cards entering the system by making Phantom events more common, and making the payout relatively better than for non-Phantom events.
I don’t think we need to worry about Wizards eliminating redemption at the moment. I expect that they are trying to limit the impact of redemption on the paper distribution chain. We may well see further adjustments in the future.
I want to write more, but this is my third straight 16 hour day. I am literally falling asleep at the keyboard. I know all of this could use a rewrite, but my deadline is here. I’ll submit, then sleep – and maybe try to correct the typos and thinks next week.
Battling with the New Interface
Each week I intend to record a video showing the Beta interface, with all its good and bad features. I’m skipping it again this week. I have been exchanging emails with Wizards about my problems. Wizards asked about a program called “RoboForm” which appears to cause a conflict. That’s not my problem, but if you have it, it could be yours. I also run a program called Sandboxie, which may have caused some of my issues. Some, not all – after finding a way to work around Sandboxie, I was fully functional for a while, but then started having new issues. Reading the forums, I am not the only one having issues after the last release – so it looks like another issue. So, more work, and another week without a video. (That said, I used what little time I had this week making the prerelease videos, so it wasn’t likely in any case.) Next weekend will be prereleases (and family stuff, etc.) but maybe early next week.
Cutting Edge Tech:
Standard: SCG held an Open in Atlanta – the first major tournament with Gatecrash. Gatecrash cards certainly made an appearance. Brad Nelson helped design this deck, but Brian Braun-Duin actually made the finals with it. Brad was 14
th. Brad updated the deck in
his article today, but you need SCG Premium (which is totally worth the price, BTW), so I won’t steal it. BBD’s build is still great.
Human Reanimator
Brian Braun-Duin, Second Place, SCG Standard Open, Atlanta, Feb. 3, 2013
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Angel of Glory's Rise
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Cathedral Sanctifier
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Fiend Hunter
4 Unburial Rites
2 Clifftop Retreat
4 Woodland Cemetery
3 Sunpetal Grove
1 Blood Crypt
1 Godless Shrine
4 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
4 Farseek
4 Mulch
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Faithless Looting
Sideboard
3 Slaughter Games
4 Appetite for Brains
3 Cathedral Sanctifier
2 Purify the Grave
3 Ray of Revelation
Return to Ravnica Block Constructed: Gatecrash is here, as you read this. RtR only decks are old news.
Pauper: With the bannings, the format will change. Since the only events so far have been pre-bannings and pre Gatecrash (I work on these articles Tuesday – early Thursday), I’ll wait until next week to update.
Modern: Online Modern now reflects the banning of Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song. I noticed that half the decks in my Modern list In the new client have now moved to Freeform or Classic. Time to find new options. I have played Tron a lot – that should still work. However, it seems time to also incorporate Gatecrash. To find those decks, we have to look at paper PTQs and GPs – but nothing is up, yet. The next best option is to look at the popular UWR Control deck from the recent PE.
UWR Control
Guillaume Wafo-tapa, Second, Modern Premier Event on 2/3/2013
3 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Azorius Charm
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Sulfur Falls
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Celestial Colonnade
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Mystic Gate
4 Cryptic Command
4 Think Twice
3 Spell Snare
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
2 Shadow of Doubt
1 Mountain
2 Island
1 Plains
3 Mana Leak
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Electrolyze
Sideboard
1 Detention Sphere
2 Counterflux
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Spellskite
1 Gideon Jura
2 Celestial Purge
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Disenchant
Legacy: The MOCs preliminaries were last weekend. A number of interesting archetypes were displayed, but this one went 6-0 in the hands of a couple different players. RUG Delver has been a thing in Legacy for a while, and if you are looking to use those new Force of Wills, this is a good option. Once I get the cards, I will post some videos of goldfishing this. Turn one wins via Laboratory Maniac seems fun to pull off. (Seriously.)
All Spells
Adam Prosak, cribbed off Wizards.com/Magic
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Street Wraith
4 Narcomoeba
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Wild Cantor
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Dread Return
4 Chrome Mox
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Grim Monolith
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Pact of Negation
Classic: No Classic events fired this week. On the plus side, Round Three of the Classic Quarter Invitational will start soon. Details
here.
Card Prices:
Notes: All my prices come from
MTGOTraders.com. For cards that are available in multiple sets, I am quoting the most recent set’s price. Thus, the price I’m quoting for Garruk Relentless is from M13. These cards are also available from the
MTGOTraders Bots, so check out mtgotradersbot, mtgotradersbot2,mtgotradersbot3, mtgotradersbot4, mtgotradersbot5, CardCaddy and CardWareHouse. These Bots often have the cards in stock even when the online store shows as out. Now, on to prices.
Standard prices are adjusting as people start brewing decks with Gatecrash, but we are really in the dead time. Nothing is changing much at this point. The one exception – Huntmaster jumped this week. A lot of brews seen in videos and so forth are red-green, so this is expected.
|
Standard & Block Cards
|
Price
|
Last Week
|
Change
|
% Change
|
|
|
$32.30
|
$32.47
|
($0.17)
|
-1%
|
|
|
$8.82
|
$8.82
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$8.89
|
$8.45
|
$0.44
|
5%
|
|
|
$37.99
|
$38.15
|
($0.16)
|
0%
|
|
|
$10.40
|
$9.81
|
$0.59
|
6%
|
|
|
$31.10
|
$34.07
|
($2.97)
|
-9%
|
|
|
$17.52
|
$17.52
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$12.93
|
$12.61
|
$0.32
|
3%
|
|
|
$10.15
|
$11.06
|
($0.91)
|
-8%
|
|
|
$16.74
|
$16.74
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$15.98
|
$17.36
|
($1.38)
|
-8%
|
|
|
$13.69
|
$13.63
|
$0.06
|
0%
|
|
|
$30.29
|
$22.73
|
$7.56
|
33%
|
|
|
$29.88
|
$30.77
|
($0.89)
|
-3%
|
|
|
$14.20
|
$14.27
|
($0.07)
|
0%
|
|
|
$21.18
|
$21.13
|
$0.05
|
0%
|
|
|
$12.59
|
$11.61
|
$0.98
|
8%
|
|
|
$7.04
|
$7.82
|
($0.78)
|
-10%
|
|
|
$8.00
|
$8.17
|
($0.17)
|
-2%
|
|
|
$9.52
|
$9.52
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$3.76
|
$3.67
|
$0.09
|
2%
|
|
|
$11.16
|
$12.12
|
($0.96)
|
-8%
|
|
|
$4.46
|
$4.82
|
($0.36)
|
-7%
|
|
|
$15.98
|
$16.87
|
($0.89)
|
-5%
|
|
|
$9.30
|
$9.30
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$6.00
|
$6.93
|
($0.93)
|
-13%
|
|
|
$14.39
|
$13.97
|
$0.42
|
3%
|
Modern prices gave up more recent gains. The exception are the Legacy cards that were heavily played in the MOCS, like Vendilion Clique. Cards from other second string decks, like Robots, are also dropping in price.
|
Modern Cards
|
Price
|
Last Week
|
Change
|
% Change
|
|
|
$67.91
|
$70.69
|
($2.78)
|
-4%
|
|
|
$47.95
|
$45.21
|
$2.74
|
6%
|
|
|
$18.43
|
$18.43
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$18.30
|
$17.00
|
$1.30
|
8%
|
|
|
$10.65
|
$13.18
|
($2.53)
|
-19%
|
|
|
$28.81
|
$28.81
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$24.12
|
$22.94
|
$1.18
|
5%
|
|
|
$20.53
|
$17.71
|
$2.82
|
16%
|
|
|
$15.81
|
$15.37
|
$0.44
|
3%
|
|
|
$21.33
|
$20.12
|
$1.21
|
6%
|
|
|
$22.82
|
$24.38
|
($1.56)
|
-6%
|
|
|
$20.76
|
$21.12
|
($0.36)
|
-2%
|
|
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
|
$14.28
|
$13.64
|
$0.64
|
5%
|
|
|
$10.00
|
$9.12
|
$0.88
|
10%
|
|
|
$6.18
|
$6.18
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$6.53
|
$9.17
|
($2.64)
|
-29%
|
|
|
$6.63
|
$6.93
|
($0.30)
|
-4%
|
|
|
$16.93
|
$16.93
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$20.80
|
$20.80
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$20.55
|
$20.55
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$10.66
|
$10.34
|
$0.32
|
3%
|
|
|
$12.44
|
$12.44
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$24.00
|
$22.43
|
$1.57
|
7%
|
|
|
$10.20
|
$8.42
|
$1.78
|
21%
|
|
|
$9.47
|
$9.76
|
($0.29)
|
-3%
|
|
|
$10.91
|
$10.91
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$7.40
|
$9.13
|
($1.73)
|
-19%
|
|
Cascade Bluffs
|
$20.27
|
$20.27
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
We are still seeing the impact of MOCS being held in a legacy format: some prices are up, some shifting back down. Up is winning.
|
Legacy / Classic Cards
|
Price
|
Last Week
|
Change
|
% Change
|
|
|
$79.59
|
$72.50
|
$7.09
|
10%
|
|
|
$102.80
|
$98.92
|
$3.88
|
4%
|
|
Vampiric Tutor
|
$28.55
|
$28.55
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$30.93
|
$28.37
|
$2.56
|
9%
|
|
|
$61.73
|
$70.54
|
($8.81)
|
-12%
|
|
|
$51.18
|
$53.72
|
($2.54)
|
-5%
|
|
|
$25.16
|
$25.16
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$27.71
|
$27.71
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$23.35
|
$24.45
|
($1.10)
|
-4%
|
|
|
$23.27
|
$22.15
|
$1.12
|
5%
|
|
|
$53.57
|
$50.26
|
$3.31
|
7%
|
|
|
$9.55
|
$9.27
|
$0.28
|
3%
|
|
|
$12.82
|
$12.45
|
$0.37
|
3%
|
|
|
$19.48
|
$19.48
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$16.36
|
$16.36
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$39.15
|
$39.15
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$17.65
|
$16.00
|
$1.65
|
10%
|
|
|
$25.21
|
$25.21
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$13.10
|
$13.10
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$8.08
|
$8.08
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$35.35
|
$35.35
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$30.07
|
$32.46
|
($2.39)
|
-7%
|
|
|
$8.44
|
$8.44
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$65.10
|
$65.10
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$39.15
|
$39.15
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$10.56
|
$9.84
|
$0.72
|
7%
|
|
|
$9.37
|
$9.37
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$16.32
|
$16.32
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$9.32
|
$9.35
|
($0.03)
|
0%
|
The Banning of Invigorate and the storm decks have shot down a ton of cards. Lotus Petal and Cabal Ritual are storm cards, while Benevolent Unicorn was just sideboard against Grapeshot and storming goblins. I’ll keep the cards affected by bannings for another week or so, just to see how far they fall. After that, I’ll add some new cards. So far, I have Rancor, Ancestral Mask (thanks, Bliven) and Counterspell. Any other suggestions?
|
Pauper Cards
|
Price
|
Last Week
|
Change
|
% Change
|
|
|
$2.72
|
$2.63
|
$0.09
|
3%
|
|
|
$3.19
|
$3.05
|
$0.14
|
5%
|
|
|
$1.08
|
$1.03
|
$0.05
|
5%
|
|
|
$2.81
|
$2.81
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$4.46
|
$4.14
|
$0.32
|
8%
|
|
|
$5.87
|
$5.05
|
$0.82
|
16%
|
|
|
$1.36
|
$4.75
|
($3.39)
|
-71%
|
|
|
$3.72
|
$5.00
|
($1.28)
|
-26%
|
|
|
$0.54
|
$1.78
|
($1.24)
|
-70%
|
|
|
$8.39
|
$8.42
|
($0.03)
|
0%
|
|
|
$0.18
|
$0.80
|
($0.62)
|
-78%
|
|
|
$1.89
|
$1.62
|
$0.27
|
17%
|
|
|
$9.25
|
$9.50
|
($0.25)
|
-3%
|
|
|
$3.86
|
$3.86
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$4.19
|
$3.54
|
$0.65
|
18%
|
|
|
$1.61
|
$1.69
|
($0.08)
|
-5%
|
|
|
$2.13
|
$2.94
|
($0.81)
|
-28%
|
|
|
$2.60
|
$2.35
|
$0.25
|
11%
|
|
|
$2.85
|
$1.95
|
$0.90
|
46%
|
|
|
$4.13
|
$4.48
|
($0.35)
|
-8%
|
|
|
$1.10
|
$1.10
|
$0.00
|
0%
|
|
|
$1.86
|
$2.06
|
($0.20)
|
-10%
|
|
|
$1.32
|
$4.39
|
($3.07)
|
-70%
|
|
|
$0.82
|
(new)
|
|
|
|
|
$6.00
|
(new)
|
|
|
|
|
$0.95
|
(new)
|
|
|
The Good Stuff:
Here’s this week’s list of the non-foil, non-premium cards on MTGO that cost more than $25 each. Note the Force of Will has fallen again, but Goyf fell faster. The list itself has shrunk – a half dozen cards dropped below $25. Here’s this week’s list of MTGO gold:
|
Card
|
Rarity
|
Set
|
Price
|
|
Lion's Eye Diamond
|
R
|
MI
|
$ 102.80
|
|
Force of Will
|
R
|
MED
|
$ 79.59
|
|
Tarmogoyf
|
R
|
FUT
|
$ 67.91
|
|
Rishadan Port
|
R
|
MM
|
$ 65.10
|
|
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
|
M
|
WWK
|
$ 61.73
|
|
Show and Tell
|
R
|
UZ
|
$ 53.57
|
|
Wasteland
|
U
|
TE
|
$ 51.18
|
|
Vendilion Clique
|
R
|
MOR
|
$ 47.95
|
|
Misdirection
|
R
|
MM
|
$ 39.15
|
|
Gaea's Cradle
|
R
|
UZ
|
$ 39.15
|
|
Geist of Saint Traft
|
M
|
ISD
|
$ 37.99
|
|
Tangle Wire
|
R
|
NE
|
$ 35.35
|
|
Liliana of the Veil
|
M
|
ISD
|
$ 32.30
|
|
Bonfire of the Damned
|
M
|
AVR
|
$ 31.10
|
|
Underground Sea
|
R
|
ME2
|
$ 31.04
|
|
Underground Sea
|
R
|
ME4
|
$ 30.93
|
|
Huntmaster of the Fells
|
M
|
DKA
|
$ 30.29
|
|
Flusterstorm
|
R
|
CMD
|
$ 30.07
|
|
Thundermaw Hellkite
|
M
|
M13
|
$ 29.88
|
|
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
|
M
|
ROE
|
$ 28.81
|
|
Vampiric Tutor
|
R
|
VI
|
$ 28.55
|
|
Vindicate
|
R
|
AP
|
$ 27.71
|
|
Mishra's Workshop
|
R
|
ME4
|
$ 25.21
|
|
Null Rod
|
R
|
WL
|
$ 25.16
|
The big number is the retail price of a playset (4 copies) of every non-foil card available on MTGO. Assuming you bought the least expensive version available, the cost of owning a playset of every card on MTGO you can own is $22,151. That is down about $75 this week – but wait until Gatecrash arrives…
Weekly Highlights:
Not many. The cold has continued. I slept a lot.
PRJ
“one million words” on MTGO.
24 Comments
Redemption in mass quantities was wreaking havoc on both the MTGO and MTG:Pants economies, and had been for a long time. Cards that were $3 mythics offline were over $10 online due 90% to redemption causing the mythic bottleneck. While I don't necessarily think that this was the absolute best way to start addressing the problem, I think something had to be done.
I really wish that WotC would work harder to integrate MTGO with "real" magic, and a unified Planeswalker points system would go a long way to accomplishing that. The ability to play "real" sanctioned magic online would also decrease some of the incentive to redeem your cards because you would need sets on both formats instead of just drafting your heart out on MTGO and then redeeming your way into sets for paper constructed (which is what I think a lot of serious online players do).
That's why junk mythics are so friggin' expensive?! Ugh! I never could think of an answer to that but this may just be it.
I've been slowly building up a foil collection of every currently available set. I started in September. It's just a personal collection for myself. I couldn't get into Zendikar because the mythic costs online were atrocious, I remember foil Felidar Sovereign was +40tix and I'm pretty sure foil Ioana was something much more absurd.
The newer sets are not AS bad, but take any foil mythic that isn't seeing competitive play and basically triple the cost in tix compared to its physical equivalent. It's very annoying.
/rant
Sounds like you are using bot prices. I've noticed on foils of the lesser played mythics that prices are all over the place - there simply isn't enough supply to establish a price. Sometimes you'll see the foil version for 2-3 tickets and a different bot is selling it for 12-15.
I've noticed that Slippery Bogle has doubled its value since I got a playset. It's a good card for a lot of formats, and selling for 1 tix or so right now. I expect that to go up. Maybe it'll top out at 2.
Also, hope you feel better soon! I really enjoyed your lengthy discussion about redemption. I don't care how many words there are, so if you're in the mood to live up to your user name, have at it. :)
Good analysis, Pete.
One correction: The wholesale price that dealers pay is $2.05-$2.10 per pack, depending on their discounts. That doesn't change much, but it gives a better picture of how attractive redemption vs. buying can be. I don't think they can quite get them for "half off".
I would suggest adding Cloudpost to the list of Pauper prices, I feel like this is a card that is going to start to spike in value....at least for a while....
They are hiring people that they should have hired 3 years ago. And Worth can comfortably says MTGO is a success when every single PTQ crashes.
So I know I had heard some time ago that MTGO was ~50% of their revenue. In a (albeit dated) article Worth claims it as 30-50% of magic revenue. He also gives some incite into the redemption process. Here is the link:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/818/818114p1.html
According to that list, 2 copies of Baleful Strix is now selling for more than the cost of a preconstructed Ninja deck that is still available and includes 2 copies of him. I know, the TIX to $US relationship is not exactly 1=1 on the market, and you can use discounts and payment methods at Heath's store that you can't on the MTGO official Store. Still I was able to get a full playset of Strix by buying two precons, then selling off to bots the Sakashima's Students for about 5-6 each and about 3 each for Silent-Blade Onis, so that works out to about $5.50 per Strix if you do it that way. I kept the Vela's and Ink-Eyes, or that would have been another few tix discount off the playset.
Excellent article as always!
Interesting thoughts on set redemption.
As an European, redemption is not that interesting due to taxes and tariffs.
As you have said, MTGO is the tail and Paper is the dog. Thus, I would foresee this move having more of an impact on MTGO than on Paper. If redemption stays high, the extra 20$ for WotC have to come from somewhere. If profit margins are as you assume, it is a possibility the dealers will just eat (part of) the loss.
But as you said, there are so many variables and with incomplete data...
I would really like to hear about the asides you left out when you find time to write about them.
And as as software developer, I have to agree that its about time they hire some people. There are ridiculous bugs persisting for years (like new decks only being shown if you manually leave and reenter the folder). Its a good thing they have the best game in the world...
"Brian Kibler writes an article on why he and LSV may be quitting competitive Magic."
From the front page summary of your article. Having something this blatantly untrue posted so prominately seems bad. Kibler said he and LSV were considering not attending any Grand Prix's in pursuit of Pro Points which while sad is not the same as them quitting high level magic. Hall of Famers have auto invites to Pro Tours without setting foot at Grand Prix which is why Kibler and LSV can consider just giving up on Pro Points and GPs.
Hall of Famers no longer get appearance fees to cover costs. Grinding GPs to get to platinum status is how they afford to attend multiple events. By competitive Magic, I meant showing up at a lot of events, grinding PT levels and being in contention everywhere, vs. showing up at a GP or PT or so, when they are close or convenient. The summary may not be well worded, but what I wrote in my article is hardly "blatantly untrue."
You noted that tickets would be more scarce by the increase of supply of boosters which I agree would be true. However heavy redeemers are a significant part of demand for tickets. So if the market doesn't adjust and redeemers pull out of the market the demand of tickets would lower. Now this assumes that the market won't just adjust and that redeemers would pull out. It also doesn't take into affect that even though redeemers are demanding tickets they aren't pulling any tickets out of the system. So I was wondering what affect this change would have on the price of tickets.
They have also seemed to been pushing phantom events which lowers cards entering the system. Maybe they fell that the supply of cards are to high in the system already.
The real problem is MTGO is an investment....you need to know that if you spend 2000$ on mtgo that one day you will be able to sell all your stuff for some amount of $. It may be $12 or $12,000 but you need to be able to get something for it. The redemption has been ok but awkward way to do this until now. I think what would be really good is for wizards to buy back tickets for $1. No shady pokerstars transactions...no back alley meetings where people could easily screw you over. Just buy my tickets back. There wouldnt be a bunch of cards leaving mtgo or entering paper...etc etc etc.....Make it easy for people to "Cash out"
Great analysis on the effect on redemption. My thinking is that it will mostly affect the ebay cost of a set. As long as it is cheaper to get cards through redemption then people will continue to do it.
Here are some suggestions for Pauper cards you could include in the list:
Mogg Conscripts - $1.42
Mogg Raider - $1.90 - You don't have any goblins and these two are the most expensive
Cloudpost - $2.30 - An extremely important card now
Preordain - $0.15 - According to mtgo-stats this is found in 44% of all decks, the highest in pauper.
Hydroblast - $2.80 - According to mtgo-stats this is the second most highly used card in pauper (at least in sideboards).
Nettle Sentinel - $3.44 - A 4-of for every stompy deck
Standard Bearer - $2.87 - A popular sideboard option against pump spells
Armadillo Cloak (INV) - $3.68 - Used in the GW aura deck and has been a feature of pauper for a while.
Seat of the Synod (MRD) - $0.29 - Affinity is a cheap deck but this is the most expensive card in it,
Chittering Rats - $0.42 - 4-of for MBC
Nightscape Familiar - $1.40
Sunscape Familiar - $1.23 - Both are seen in Familiar storm decks which may be increasing in popularity after the bans.
I never get why people are so obsessed with Hydroblast and Pyroblast (which are $2.80 and $4.45, respectively) when you can just use Blue Elemental Blast and Red Elemental Blast ($0.10 and $1.68: seems like some players got wise about the latter at least, since the last time I checked). The only real difference is that you can cast Hydroblast and Pyroblast when you don't have a target. But why should you want to do that? The only reason that comes to mind is in a Storm deck, to increase the count, when you had sideboarded in a Pyro for protection but in the end you didn't need it while combo out. It's pretty thin as a reason already, but I can't think of anything else in the case of other decks, I really don't see color change shenanigans being done with them.
Pyroblast and Hydroblast are legal in MTGO pauper, but REB and BEB are not. On MTGO they were released as uncommons. There is a common promo for BEB but that seems not enough for it to be pauper legal.
Oh, you're right. I admit I don't play pauper much, but this seems to be quite absurd: why should we have an online format based on the rarity of online cards? The pool should be the same as the format's construction and premise entails. Plus, the promo rarity is fictitious (the distribution system of the promos has nothing to do with booster rarity), so when they mark them as "common" rather than "rare" is precisely to define them for the sake of formats that care about that. That Blue Elemental Blast is still unplayable looks like a bug to me.
First of all; nice article, like always. Your math is wrong though in the following part:
"Well, let’s assume that a store is going to host an event, and wants to be able to sell singles. That store figures it needs four playsets of everything, over and above what it can buy from players in its store. In the past, the store would have to crack boosters to get those cards. Let’s use Return to Ravnica as an example. The set has 15 mythics and 53 rares. Using the estimate of one mythic per eight packs, you will need to open 120 packs to get one copy of each Mythic. 120 packs would have a bit over two sets of rares. Four playsets of everything means opening 1,920 packs. Assuming the store is paying something like $2.50, wholesale, for packs, that is a total cost of $4,700."
More precisely: "you will need to open 120 packs to get one copy of each Mythic. (...) Four playsets of everything means opening 1,920 packs. "
How did you get 1920?
120 is the number of packs you will need to open to get 1 specifick Mythic. You need more to get all. Say you have opened some number of packs and currently got 6 out of all 15 Mythics. Therefore, whenever you open a new Mythic you will have a probability of 9/15 to open a new (there are 9 Mythics left). Thus, you need to open 15/9 Mythics to get a new. In general with k<15 Mythics, you will need to open 15/(15-k) to get the next. If we do the sum (sum over 15/(15-k) for k=0 to 14) and multiply by 8 (for 8 packs to get one Mythic) we get that you need to open close to 400 packs (my calculations says 398.1874791874792 packs). You can then overapproximate (that is: the number I will give now is too high) to get a playset of all with 4*400=1600 - it is too high because most (220) of the packs to get one of each is spent on getting the last 3.
Doing the real calculation to get a playset of each Mythic is quite a lot of work and I am going to skip that. Instead I will give a estimate. Normally getting the last 3 Mythics (corresponding to sum over 15/(15-k) for k=12 to 14 times 8) took over half the packs (220 to be excat). By getting 12 distinct Mythics 4 times (each takes less than 180) takes less than 720 packs. You are now missing less than 12 cards (3*4). I do not know of a good way to find how many packs I need for that. I suspect 720 might be less (but a lot closer than 1600) than the right number of packs to open 4 of each Mythic. Since I think 720 (maybe too little) is a much better estimate than 1600 (this is surely too much) I will would guess that 900 is a good but proberly still too high estimate.
This halfs your number and ruins your point :/ (ecspecially when we take the cheaper prices - as mentioned by someone else above - on packs into account). Naturally you will also need to open the packs/sort the packs, which requires work and thus might tip the scale - on the other hand you will get waaaaay more cards than a playset of each card (as you said the rares takes alot less to get a playset of). I would think that it was still a quite good deal for a seller.
tl;dr: 400 packs to open one of each Mythic. 1600 packs to open 4 of each is too high. 720 might be too little. 900 seemes reasonable.
"tl;dr: 400 packs to open one of each Mythic. 1600 packs to open 4 of each is too high. 720 might be too little. 900 seemes reasonable."
Except that his math is for 4 *playsets* ... which is 16 of each. That's how he got to 1920 (120 packs * 16).
If anything your more probabilistic math vs. Pete's perfectly even distribution illustratess the point even more that redemption is ridiculously efficient as obtaining singles for Vendors.
The post was mainly about the correctness of the math (and not so much that what he used it for). 400 *is* a better estimate of how many packs you need to open to get one of each Mythic than 120, which was the main point. I agree with you that I should have seen the 4 playsets.
"This halfs your number and ruins your point :/ "
The point is not ruined at all. It is, in fact, even more poignant.
Yes, I agree that I messed up with overlooking that 4 playsets part.
You know I follow pauper prices like very few others.
I feel like the pauper market is definitely being manipulated at the moment. Cards are rising and crashing overnight! (i understand the market will do this to a degree post-bannings, but this is NOT just a result of post-bannings.)
Some of the pauper cards people were mentioning above have already crashed... This is normally a sign that some idiot is trying to prop up prices (and hope they stick).
Slippery Bogle is a great example! Was $.08. Shot up to near 1.25 a few days ago; already around what I feel is it's (correct) price of $.15
If any creature from the GW hexproof deck is going to catch fire - I'd bet it's Ledgewalker. But it won't happen like that. $.08 -> $1.25 -> $.15 is clearly attempted market manipulation to me.
And Bogle is not the only card I've seen this happen with.