Editorial Section:
Hello and welcome back! First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for the great comments in last week's article! There were some amazingly well thought out and well stated discussion items. If you missed it, I highly recommend checking them out. I'm constantly amazed at the depth of knowledge the readers of this site have.
Secondly (and off-topic-ly) I passed my judge test a few short days ago and am now a Level 1 judge! I'd like to give a huge "thank you" to the guys at Paradox in Fargo (Brian and Rich) for all their help!
Lastly, I'm getting back on the constructed horse and working my way to 1800 just like my New Year's resolution said. Since most of my magic playing has been in paper I had a bit of a shock when I checked my rating on MTGO... nearly 100 points lower than my paper rating. Yikes. I'm starting this second leg of the journey at 1613 constructed on MTGO whereas my paper rating is over 1700 right now. Luckily I've been able to weasel more hours of the day for playtesting and playing Magic which seems to be translating into a better rating in MTGP. Time to start to transition that into MTGO! Much like each time I walk into a new metagame I choose to bring the deck that poses the questions and makes my opponent have the answers. It's a much faster way to learn the meta, and as usual, I start in the Tournament Practice room to see how the deck flows. Below is my first video for the new Standard format! Please forgive my lack of writing this week, as recording and preparing video content is rather time consuming...
Discussion items:
Despite the slow week we have a pretty hefty new discussion item. A few weeks ago I linked a thread about someone getting a 30 day ban from MTGO for splitting prizes/collusion/something. It turns out that they are currently re-evaluating the PAPER rules for this process and won't make a comment on it until then! For those who play in both mediums, I imagine that this could drastically impact both MTGO and MTGP for a good long while!
Also new this week is a call from a frustrated player of MTGO who is sick of the US bias for the game. For those who have been around for a while, this isn't a new topic. It's long been stated that the downtimes hurt overseas players more than US. Add in the recent MOPR's US only status and the MOCS times and Community Cup invites... and you have some justifiably frustrated non-US citizens.
Card Price Discussion:
Kaboom!!!! Force of Will and Rise of the Eldrazi continue to plummet whilst some good cards from Zendikar take off. Namely, cards that are in PTQ type winning decks are going up, UP UP!
While I sympathize with those who feel short changed by WotC's policies in regards to foreign players they are sadly somewhat bound by their attorneys and the laws of the very countries of the people who are complaining. If you don't like the way your nation does business change it. I know that isn't a helpful thing to say for most people since the average person has trouble just changing politics on a local level much less a national level. All the same change starts somewhere.
Grats on the Level 1 judgeship. Nice to meet you, your honor. :p Seriously though I expect great things. I have to say I am somewhat disappointed in ROE so not surprised that the rares are plummeting. It would be nice if you had more indepth information on what is taking off in Zen. All I see are 5 cards that are already hot on this SotP.
Gah, the video was too long for YouTube and evidently too much video for vidilife. :/ I found a different hoster and have uploaded the video there. It should be all good now. Thanks!
And PhotoBucket "solves" the problem by truncating the video.
The last few turns wind up with him O-ringig a token, playing a blocker, Day'ing the board and going down to 5 life in the process. I top deck up to three lands in play and Earthquake for 2. He plays a creature making almost ever draw in my deck lethal:
Any land activates Searing Blaze
Any burn + earthquake wins
Goblin Bushwhacker allows the win via Summnons
Essentially any non-creature wins me the game and goblin bushwhacker does too. I draw a Scalding tarn and Searing Blaze him out of the match.
The regulations in European countries should only prohibit a program such as the MOPR in some nations and it is pure lazyness to not investigate where it is possible to run it from Wizards side.
As a business principle myself, I don't deal with the EU market simply because there is too much variation. Germany, this is legal, France its not, etc etc... Much much simpler to just say, sorry no can do. If a EU player really wants it, there are ways around the system to get it. Find an IT pro.
PS> Not plugging my co. here but might be able to help with the loop around :-)
Every time you put one of these up with all the card values I just love seeing how the prices track over time. Congrats on the judgeship. I hope you never have to toss me out of an event if I should happen into one your preside over. I suspect the new ruling on collusion will only be a heavier punishment for those caught. I certainly cant see them allowing it to happen again. It's just not like WOTC to go back on themselves like that.
I can see people outside the USA complaining about the scheduling of events, at times that are in the wee hours of the night for them or whenever.
But things like the Player Rewards program, it's simple enough to just lie and click whatever checkboxes say you're eligible for prizes. I think Wizards expects people to, they just obviously can't SAY "Feel free to go ahead and break the law and we won't check".
If you think the events are easy for US players just try to play a Legacy event online. 12 midnight and 1 AM really!!! It would be nice to see Legacy DEs fire more often. It might even improve the sales of the non-redeemable card sets.
you'll never please everyone... they keep events running at all hours of the day and you cant avoid the fact that night time for some is day time for others.. hell I'd love to get in on some events as listed on the schedule, but in reality its a 3 hour difference and those ones that would be perfect to play early afternoon are evening/night for me and thus I can't
In the last game when you had 3 earthquakes, you mentioned that only a lightning bolt or an "untap" land will win you the game, however a burst lightning would as well after you earthquake for X=1.
17 Comments
While I sympathize with those who feel short changed by WotC's policies in regards to foreign players they are sadly somewhat bound by their attorneys and the laws of the very countries of the people who are complaining. If you don't like the way your nation does business change it. I know that isn't a helpful thing to say for most people since the average person has trouble just changing politics on a local level much less a national level. All the same change starts somewhere.
Grats on the Level 1 judgeship. Nice to meet you, your honor. :p Seriously though I expect great things. I have to say I am somewhat disappointed in ROE so not surprised that the rares are plummeting. It would be nice if you had more indepth information on what is taking off in Zen. All I see are 5 cards that are already hot on this SotP.
BTW what video?
/vidilife/video/2007/12/27/1080484/2045669.wmv
Is your video link, and it looks like it's for something made 12/27/2007...which is probably wrong ;)
lolz to be honest ive tried uploading videos to youtube in order to use them in articles and for some never get pass the upload screen...
The regulations in European countries should only prohibit a program such as the MOPR in some nations and it is pure lazyness to not investigate where it is possible to run it from Wizards side.
Or perhaps cost effectiveness plays a part in addition to just plain ole' caution.
there is always the solution of just editing your info to say you are from ohh i dont know somewhere its legal?
idk but vid link seems to still not be working to me
As a business principle myself, I don't deal with the EU market simply because there is too much variation. Germany, this is legal, France its not, etc etc... Much much simpler to just say, sorry no can do. If a EU player really wants it, there are ways around the system to get it. Find an IT pro.
PS> Not plugging my co. here but might be able to help with the loop around :-)
dup post
Every time you put one of these up with all the card values I just love seeing how the prices track over time. Congrats on the judgeship. I hope you never have to toss me out of an event if I should happen into one your preside over. I suspect the new ruling on collusion will only be a heavier punishment for those caught. I certainly cant see them allowing it to happen again. It's just not like WOTC to go back on themselves like that.
I can see people outside the USA complaining about the scheduling of events, at times that are in the wee hours of the night for them or whenever.
But things like the Player Rewards program, it's simple enough to just lie and click whatever checkboxes say you're eligible for prizes. I think Wizards expects people to, they just obviously can't SAY "Feel free to go ahead and break the law and we won't check".
If you think the events are easy for US players just try to play a Legacy event online. 12 midnight and 1 AM really!!! It would be nice to see Legacy DEs fire more often. It might even improve the sales of the non-redeemable card sets.
you'll never please everyone... they keep events running at all hours of the day and you cant avoid the fact that night time for some is day time for others.. hell I'd love to get in on some events as listed on the schedule, but in reality its a 3 hour difference and those ones that would be perfect to play early afternoon are evening/night for me and thus I can't
In the last game when you had 3 earthquakes, you mentioned that only a lightning bolt or an "untap" land will win you the game, however a burst lightning would as well after you earthquake for X=1.