Editorial Section:
Hello and welcome to another week at State of the Program! I'm extremely excited and pleased to be bringing you some of the pooled Worldwake spoiler cards! As always, I thank Wizard's PR for hooking up PureMTGO and I thank Heath and Josh for letting me in on the action. It's always an amazing feeling to be chosen for this type of thing. Enough with the mushy accolades though, let's see some cards!
First up is a Troll Shroud and Evasion granting uncommon Aura. The price is right and the abilities are actually worth the investment. I see it in a similar light as Whispersilk Cloak in limited in that it grants evasion and shroud but this balances out the more powerful version of shroud (wherein you can still target the creature yourself) by being a one-and-done Aura instead of an equipment. There are some okay cards to pair this up with in Standard, like Lightning Reaver and Guul Draz Specter, but I'd be suprised to see this make a jump from Limited where it may be more playable, into constructed as it's fighting with (Vines of the Vastwood) for the two mana protection slot. Whereas that's a one time deal, this does get to stick around and keep protecting the creature it's on.
Next up is a new Quest card, which carries the same drawbacks as most Quests in that it sucks to topdeck it, but this one attempts to balance that out with a very powerful effect. The life loss is huge with this card once it gets online. The big question is "how" to do that. If you get it early, then your discard is obviously going to be able to get the job done. But what about if you get it late game? Well, there's an answer for that too in a little common from M10: Burning Inquiry... oh, and it's in the Blightning, Sedraxis Specter, Hypnotic Specter colors as well. Isn't that interesting... This card certainly has potential for some pretty awesome wins in Standard.
Moving on to my second favorite spoiled card of this clump of cards is the following saucy little Aura. I loved the Genju's back in Kamigawa (especially the Red and the Black ones...) and I also love this cycle. For those who haven't seen the green guy yet he's a 6/4 for 4G with the same return to hand clause as the Wind Zendikon below. Now, one *could* do this on turn one. If that one was looking to get tempo'd to death, anyway. I'm much more interested in the fact that it's a 2/2 haste, flying creature for essentially 1U. The nice part of these new land enchantments over the Genju cycle is they can be put onto any land. Possibly the funniest thing is throwing it on a fetchland and swinging with it until it's needed then getting the land back.
And lastly for the week is my favorite card of the group. It's a relatively small, simple effect: put two 1/1 tokens in play for four mana. Nothing really to write home about for the most part. But here's the big deal: two instant speed allies. Double triggers. Protection from two colors, double counters, or even discarding instant speed. I admit that I fully expected to see an instant allies in Worldwake, but I did not expect this. Two instant speed allies for four mana isn't a bad deal at all and I expect that allies will get a pretty big boost with even just this card added to the mix. I don't know if these alone will bring Allies into the Constructed sphere but it certainly can't hurt their chances at all. Even with straight White ally decks you can go turn two Blademaster, turn three Kabira, turn four Join the Ranks for some silliness. Granted that's a raging case of Best Case Scenario Mentality (Thanks Marshal and Ryan!), but it's an intriguing thought none-the-less!
And there we have a handful more cards straight from the folks at WotC! I'm excited about a lot of them so far as most have at least some uses in limited and even Constructed.
Discussion Items: Wherefore art thou, Counterbalance?
Seems like there was recently a huge run on Counterbalance. Early speculation is that there was a run on them for the Legacy format, although no one knows for sure yet.
MOCS Point Totals return!
I'm very excited to see these come back to MTGO. Even though they were only gone for a short while I'm excited about their return. Putting something more than just a win/loss on the line is good thing overall.
Card Price Discussion:
Two important impacts of the recent tournament focus on MTGO: Extended card prices have gone way up and continue to be the biggest gainers. Secondly, a format that allows old cards to be playable has really helped the value of the old Tempest cards that were, until this point, stagnant. Strong cards like Tradewind Rider which weren't strong enough in Classic are way more playable now thanks to the new Tempest Block Constructed format. In a related note, it seems that all the Counterbalance's on the market are now gone. No one has figured out where they went but hoarding seems like the obvious answer so far. Either that or a counterbalance focused rapture.
As far as dropping prices... Not much fell very far. The main forces this week are the shifting Extended metagame. Chalice is bombastic against Hypergenesis based decks but not really amazing otherwise. As the Hypergenesis decks wane in popularity so too does the need for Chalices. Steam Vents aren't really used in any decks... not even the U/R storm based decks so it's moving lower right now due to that lack of demand. Other than that, the main downward movers were Standard based changes.
Tournaments:
I will be using this section as a place to house my tournament videos each week. This week I have videos of my Daily Event with RDW.
Match 1 game 1:
Match 1 game 2:
Match 1 game 3:
Match 2 game 1:
Match 2 games 2 and 3:
Match 3 game 1:
Match 3 game 2:
Match 3 game 3:
Match 4 game 1: Unfortunately this match was over before my recording software was finished rendering a previous game and my replay is lost to the Aether. I'll summarize though: He's in Naya colors and leads with a Wild Nacatl and a Lotus Cobra. We get into a race which I win via Elemental Appeal into a board with untapped mountains. I expected a blowout thanks to a Lightning Bolt but nothing came and I won game 1
Match 4 game 2:
So how am I doing on my goal for 1800? After an abysmal Extended Daily event (I ran Charbelcher... a choice I wouldn't advocate right now) I found myself up to 1621 (from a low of 1588 after the Extended event). Solid progress after taking a week off of playing for personal issues. Obviously each week won't be the same but if I can keep on this pace I'll be well on my way to hit my 1800 mark in time! I might have just had a lucky night, but thanks to going 3-1 in a Standard event I was able to recoup my tickets and have enough for about three more events after I sold my packs. That's a nice feeling, and I should be able to leverage more tournaments into more winnings if things keep moving forward as they have been.
Lastly for this section I think I've finally done. I think I've finally found a way to integrate into the MTGO Events calendar. As you can see below there's a fully functional Google Calendar below which *should* be localized to your time zone (it's localized to mine accurately but I haven't tested it fully). If it looks good I'll work on hyperlinking the events (like they are on the original calendar) as well as getting the RSS feed published for it as well. The good news is that done this way each time I update the calendar behind the scenes it will automagically update in each and every State of the Program that has this calendar displayed ! So feel free to bookmark a state of the program of your choice going forward and you'll have the freshest calendar ever. Another great feature that I've already begun to use is the "Copy to my Calnedar" feature on each event. That way I can grab the events that I like and put them on my fully sync'd up GMail Calendar. Booyah!
Conclusion:
Whew! Busy week, and editing/narrating/posting four rounds of videos is A LOT of work each week. I'll see if there's a better way to do this, if not I'll probably have to figure out a good balance of some videos but not all of them. Also, I'm very happy with my calendar integration so far, hopefully others will use it as well. For those keeping score, this is my third attempt at improving the WotC MTGO Calendar and I think that I just may have found the way to reliably make that work. Essentially it's five clicks, change a date, and import a text file to google. I'd like to get that down to change a date, and one click and done... but I'll have to get Google's Data API working for that to happen. Until then I think I can handle five clicks to keep things up to date!
That calendar is pretty sweet. It's easier to read than the client, and it loads faster too. Seeing it every week will get me planning for events.
Wind Zendikon on my Strip Mine? Wind Zendikon on an opponent's land to trigger my Oath? Wind Zendikon for plan-B beats? Wind Zendikon + Balance = down a creature, down a land, and you don't get the card-in-hand until after Balance finishes resolving. Haha! Wind Zendikon on Mishra's Factory, too. I like it!
Counterbalance is probably "hoarding fail". This is the first I'd heard of it. I bet someone thought they'd be clever and horde something that everyone will want, like the Vampiric Tutor guy or the Natural Order guy. But unlike those successful hoarders, this person choose a penny stock. So congrats on raising the price to $1. Now have fun trying to sell 100 copies at a $1 each to make your $25 profit. The reason this is "hoarding fail" is because you can make just as money off of a playset of Goyfs or top tier dual lands. Four transactions vs 100. I should be thankful that the goon choose a card that I already own.
I bought a bunch of counterbalance's (53 @ final count) amoung other things,on the assumption that with increasing demand from legacy i could possibly make a few tixs off them, a few other people likely did the same(i mean its not exactly rocket science) and a false scarcity was created.
This isn't hoarding, its a bunch of individuals speculating based on publicly available information (obviously this comment is moot if it turns out someone is buying counterbalance's en-masse).
Personally i find it more worrying that all the major bot chains can consistantly come to the same singles sales prices "independantly".
Most bot chains use either a master base list, or scrape the prices of one of the dealers who use that list.
Mass speculation/hoarding is something I've commented on a few times now. And the end result is the same: scarce cards and upset players. 53 isn't really "hoarding" per se, but when ten people do the same thing, it has the same net result as one person hoarding.
That is a technique that involves changing the card art in the game files. It's not an overly wise thing to do, but lots of players like to do it anyway.
How to modify the lands? I found the art files in the card art folder and replaced them with Anime. I figure two things:
1) It's about the same as skinning the client
2) It's a small way we can customize our cards that paper player have enjoyed for years. We can't get cool custom art, but we can make our cards a bit more personal. Which is what I did to my local forests and mountains. However I often switch them back and forth, as I feel the desire to see the gorgeous Zendikar lands in their full glory. :D
Hmm with Join the ranks and Halim Expediter? or whatever the blue mill ally is i might meed to revisit them. Im still convinced though Allies need a one mana guy
W
1/1
Whenever -cardname- or another ally comes into play tap target creature?
heck make it uncommon
Uncommon? That might have a power level of rare. As a 1 drop that is fantastic. As an uncommon you're looking at a game winner in limited. Draft this or lose to it.
actually I thought about it on the way home. It's possible you could make its a 0/1 for 1W and then make it uncommon. Not the one drop you asked for, but I think at this lower level and higher cost, it wouldn't be a first pick that would force you into Allys if you opened it.
As for a 2/1 at rare. It's not really it's power and toughness that is the issue. It's the fact that it costs 1 and it has an ability that is super abusive. If could be 0/1 for W at rare and STILL be good. But yeah I could see it being a 2/1. However I think it would be a rare that if you opened this, it would force you to draft it and be in allies.
as someone who isn't a drafter I'm thinking more towards constructed applications or at least tribal standard. And I made sure to write so that regardless its still only a one 4 one until you start dropping multiple allies a turn. So if your opponent plays one creature a turn and so do you you are still only tapping one of theirs. I guess its sort of a free blinding mage but it requires you to play creatures. THough it would need to be at least uncommon since multiples would get fairly abusive pretty quick.
Changing card Art
by Frank (not verified)
at Fri, 01/15/2010 - 20:48
So how about telling me how to access the folder for card art in MOL. I've looked under program files using Vista and nothing under Wizards of the Coast, just my Etools, lol. Is the destination folder something different other than Wizards of the Coast? Thanks.
The bitterness at hordering fail is insane. If this mystery person fails why would anyone be bothered? If all the CB really are gone then I doubt it will stay at 1.
I suspect the bitterness is not at the fail but at the act of hording whether it is successful or not. It creates an environment of suspicion and paranoia as people try to figure out whether the formerly .25 card is now worth the $10 price tag the dealers demand for it. I think the fail part is wishful thinking. (I should note I am not talking about a specific card...no idea whether Counterbalance will sky rocket or not.)
17 Comments
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT CALENDAR! :)
That calendar is pretty sweet. It's easier to read than the client, and it loads faster too. Seeing it every week will get me planning for events.
Wind Zendikon on my Strip Mine? Wind Zendikon on an opponent's land to trigger my Oath? Wind Zendikon for plan-B beats? Wind Zendikon + Balance = down a creature, down a land, and you don't get the card-in-hand until after Balance finishes resolving. Haha! Wind Zendikon on Mishra's Factory, too. I like it!
Counterbalance is probably "hoarding fail". This is the first I'd heard of it. I bet someone thought they'd be clever and horde something that everyone will want, like the Vampiric Tutor guy or the Natural Order guy. But unlike those successful hoarders, this person choose a penny stock. So congrats on raising the price to $1. Now have fun trying to sell 100 copies at a $1 each to make your $25 profit. The reason this is "hoarding fail" is because you can make just as money off of a playset of Goyfs or top tier dual lands. Four transactions vs 100. I should be thankful that the goon choose a card that I already own.
Pez is growing in popularity among pauper players. Maybe all those counterbalance are in pez decks now. How many cards are we talking about anyway?
I bought a bunch of counterbalance's (53 @ final count) amoung other things,on the assumption that with increasing demand from legacy i could possibly make a few tixs off them, a few other people likely did the same(i mean its not exactly rocket science) and a false scarcity was created.
This isn't hoarding, its a bunch of individuals speculating based on publicly available information (obviously this comment is moot if it turns out someone is buying counterbalance's en-masse).
Personally i find it more worrying that all the major bot chains can consistantly come to the same singles sales prices "independantly".
Most bot chains use either a master base list, or scrape the prices of one of the dealers who use that list.
Mass speculation/hoarding is something I've commented on a few times now. And the end result is the same: scarce cards and upset players. 53 isn't really "hoarding" per se, but when ten people do the same thing, it has the same net result as one person hoarding.
uh, how did you get thst neat land in the first match game 3?
That is a technique that involves changing the card art in the game files. It's not an overly wise thing to do, but lots of players like to do it anyway.
*hamtastic re-reads the reply*
Ahh!
How to modify the lands? I found the art files in the card art folder and replaced them with Anime. I figure two things:
1) It's about the same as skinning the client
2) It's a small way we can customize our cards that paper player have enjoyed for years. We can't get cool custom art, but we can make our cards a bit more personal. Which is what I did to my local forests and mountains. However I often switch them back and forth, as I feel the desire to see the gorgeous Zendikar lands in their full glory. :D
Hmm with Join the ranks and Halim Expediter? or whatever the blue mill ally is i might meed to revisit them. Im still convinced though Allies need a one mana guy
W
1/1
Whenever -cardname- or another ally comes into play tap target creature?
heck make it uncommon
I mean that would work right?
Uncommon? That might have a power level of rare. As a 1 drop that is fantastic. As an uncommon you're looking at a game winner in limited. Draft this or lose to it.
ok so rare works maybe make it a 2/1 then
actually I thought about it on the way home. It's possible you could make its a 0/1 for 1W and then make it uncommon. Not the one drop you asked for, but I think at this lower level and higher cost, it wouldn't be a first pick that would force you into Allys if you opened it.
As for a 2/1 at rare. It's not really it's power and toughness that is the issue. It's the fact that it costs 1 and it has an ability that is super abusive. If could be 0/1 for W at rare and STILL be good. But yeah I could see it being a 2/1. However I think it would be a rare that if you opened this, it would force you to draft it and be in allies.
as someone who isn't a drafter I'm thinking more towards constructed applications or at least tribal standard. And I made sure to write so that regardless its still only a one 4 one until you start dropping multiple allies a turn. So if your opponent plays one creature a turn and so do you you are still only tapping one of theirs. I guess its sort of a free blinding mage but it requires you to play creatures. THough it would need to be at least uncommon since multiples would get fairly abusive pretty quick.
So how about telling me how to access the folder for card art in MOL. I've looked under program files using Vista and nothing under Wizards of the Coast, just my Etools, lol. Is the destination folder something different other than Wizards of the Coast? Thanks.
i think you have to go into the actual program files of your computer not through the User folders...
The bitterness at hordering fail is insane. If this mystery person fails why would anyone be bothered? If all the CB really are gone then I doubt it will stay at 1.
I suspect the bitterness is not at the fail but at the act of hording whether it is successful or not. It creates an environment of suspicion and paranoia as people try to figure out whether the formerly .25 card is now worth the $10 price tag the dealers demand for it. I think the fail part is wishful thinking. (I should note I am not talking about a specific card...no idea whether Counterbalance will sky rocket or not.)