Editorial Section:
Before I get into the Editorial Section, I'd like to ask for the communities help in our testing for the MTGO Community Cup. To help us test our decks, and discuss changes, choices, etc, please type /join ccc whenever you can in the game. We'll be there hanging out and talking about the CC as often as possible! Thanks!!!
There's a very high likelihood that by this point in your life you've watched the stereotypical 'teen movie'. Whether you're 13, 30 or 65, you know the type of movie. Awkward but lovable protagonist is unappreciated by those around him/her. Said goober/goobette goes about its business with apathy to the hate and derision of its peers, perfectly at peace with itself and knows that it has more inner beauty than all of them put together. At some point in the story the
protagonist learns to brush his/her hair and does a dance/crazy stunt/etc to get the attention the only other person who could possibly understand them on every level... who just so happens to be the cheerleader/star football player, respectively. Of course you've experienced this movie. It's a typical story arc for a reason, it's a fictionally over-embellished version of what we all have really hoped would happen to us or someone we knew at some point in our life. The reason it pulls in generation after generation of young adults is that it's a dream outcome. But of course, life almost never works out that way.
Almost never.
Well, okay, she got contacts too.
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to go to Pro Tour Austin to cover MTGO Related items and the MTGO Live series as well as gather some interviews with key WotC employees like Mark Rosewater and Adriana Moscatelli. After spending so much time with the people behind the scenes of Magic and MTGO I have a few things to say from firsthand experience and based on direct information. In cheesy-teen-movie parlance, MTGO is getting its hair brushed. (And now I have shared the disturbing mental image of Mark Rosewater gently caressing a be-wigged MTGO server while brushing its hair with you all. You're welcome.) But tangent aside; MTGO is no longer seen as the frumpy protagonist bumbling around in the crowd. It is firmly in the spotlight of a LOT of the big ballin' shot callin' people at WotC. I could tell that they now see the potential of MTGO as we do. Maybe they did before, maybe not, I couldn't tell you. But to say that the perception of MTGO's potential has changed would be a drastic understatement. Fellow MTGO historians will recall the last statement we heard about MTGO's future was on its launch. It was something to the effect that "MTGO will be allowed to grow so long as it doesn't impact paper.". Which was always made it feel like the Sword of Damocles hanging just over our beloved medium. Too much growth and you're toast! But what is it now? It's now "We want people to play Magic however they can, and for that, Online is the future.". Paraphrased from Mark Rosewater. To quote the internet: "ya rly".
Strong words about how serious MTGO is to Wizards now. And it's not just Mark. I got the same thoughts and impressions from pretty much everyone I found at the event. Hopefully I can get some time to interview Mike Gills during the Community Cup about what he's working on for MTGO right now and what all he had to do to get MTGO into the event coverage of the Pro Tour... it's an amazing tale to be sure. I'm not exactly sure how late he was at the convention center working to get the video set up to work, but the number I heard the next morning was past 1:00 am. Just to ensure that MTGO got its first shot at being in the center stage for the MTGO Live Series Finals. Again, a huge amount of dedication to getting MTGO's Organized Play (aka tournaments) into where we all have wanted it to be for so long.
All this for MTGO...
The internal mentality about MTGO seems to have vastly changed from when I started playing, but there's always a 'but'. In this case the 'but' is that it will take time to get everything up to what we all (all meaning us the players and WotC) expect it to be. Better UI? In progress. Better server structure? In progress. They're working on many different aspects of the program right now and working on them in such a way that they'll work together as things get finished. The problem is that they're starting from so far back that they've had to put in a lot of work just to get caught up, and much more to get ahead. But I truly believe that they are making the right progress based on all I've seen. Would I like it done faster? Duh, obviously. I would also like a gold brick express mailed to house, while we're at it. Sometimes you have to realize that a situation exists as it is and it will continue to exist no matter how much you personally wish for it to be different, faster, or better.
Interview with Adriana Moscatelli -
One of the top two interviews I've ever done. I got a lot of nitty gritty details about V3.5, the UI and the process behind it. Want to know about how the cognitive load differs from new to experienced players and how that impacts their usage of MTGO? I bet you do!
Interview with Mark Rosewater -
The other of my top two interviews. Everything about this interview was a surprise to me. From how it happened to the details contained in it. Top to bottom a great read about MTGO.
V3.5 UI #1 - V3.5 UI #2 - V3.5 UI #3 (mananation)-
I will tell you here and now, that the next UI is already looking miles better than what we currently have. In fact, if I could choose to use the previewed UI or the current UI duel scene, I'd probably choose the previewed duel scene. The flow is much more coherent, the layout is far cleaner and things just make sense. Like where things go as you use them and move them.
Card Price Discussions:
Baneslayer, Baneslayer. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.... Seriously folks. She's in top Extended decks, Top Standard decks...She's everywhere, and her price reflects that demand. Nocturnus is sort of opposite but still the same. He's uber-linear and yet he's strong enough to shrug that off and gain value this week. Another big mover is Glimpse. Unthinkable!? Heh. But yeah, Mill decks are taking off quite strongly in a few formats now, and respectively, they're increasing. Sable Stag corrects a bit and goes back to about three dollars, which is still probably a bit low for what it does, which is: beat up on Blue and Black decks, respectively.
Going down... Essentially all the Zendikar cards dropped hard and fast since Monday, which as we all know by now is par for the course. Expect these to keep falling for a little bit longer. There is just way too much product being opened by way too many hold too much value right now.
Conclusion:
If you've noticed the simalarties between my editorial section and Pete Jahn's article, there's a good reason. We both got to meet a lot of the same people last weekend. The interesting thing is that we both walked away with a very similar impression of those people: dedicated, smart, driven and focused.
just out of curiuosity...how accurate are prices for cards that are out of stock? I mean Gatekeepers for a dollar sound reasonable but no one has any, it makes me think once they are available the price will jump up again...
prices are nice
by Anonymous (not verified)
at Fri, 10/23/2009 - 13:36
but i have yet to attain the asking prices of what you state. seriously, no one will buy any of my stock for these prices. safe to say actual purchasing power is 15% off what you state?
Maybe it's because of the relative weakness of Zendikar compared to ALA and M10 but it seems like prices have tanked insanely quickly for this set even though we are still in the release event period. Almost all of the fetches have dropped to pretty reasonable prices and I picked up Day of Judgement, what has to be a tournament staple, for 6 tix. I realize that when certain cards end up in hot standard decks there prices will rise but it is still surprising to see how so much of the set is worth absolutely nothing so soon. Even junk Med3 rares held their value better than most of the cards in this set.
Undiscovered paradise moved up because of it's interaction with Bloodghast in Legacy (Classic) Dredge decks. Obviously, when you need almost no mana and want landfall every turn, it actually begins to make this (terrible?) card look pretty good.
MTGO live event
by bluedragon123 (not verified)
at Sat, 10/24/2009 - 00:00
Does anyone know where we can get the footage for the live event finals. I wasn't able to watch the PT top 8 live and I understand it was shown during lunch time then but I can't seem to find it posted anywhere.
I'm also getting the error on the charts that Paul describes. :(
My bad. I didn't say it clearly :/. I see the PT top 8 itself, but I can't find the MTGO live event footage that they said they showed during the lunch break. ...The finals of the draft that was on mtgo and for $5000.
19 Comments
just out of curiuosity...how accurate are prices for cards that are out of stock? I mean Gatekeepers for a dollar sound reasonable but no one has any, it makes me think once they are available the price will jump up again...
So the second chart there is very pretty! What program did you use to generate it?
You finally got your percentages in percent form!!!!!!!!!
It's the little things that make all the difference. :)
but i have yet to attain the asking prices of what you state. seriously, no one will buy any of my stock for these prices. safe to say actual purchasing power is 15% off what you state?
Clicking on the charts gets this error:
"The requested page could not be found"
Maybe it's because of the relative weakness of Zendikar compared to ALA and M10 but it seems like prices have tanked insanely quickly for this set even though we are still in the release event period. Almost all of the fetches have dropped to pretty reasonable prices and I picked up Day of Judgement, what has to be a tournament staple, for 6 tix. I realize that when certain cards end up in hot standard decks there prices will rise but it is still surprising to see how so much of the set is worth absolutely nothing so soon. Even junk Med3 rares held their value better than most of the cards in this set.
Um, no
Zen's prices crashed because of literally the most amount of people buying the most of product and playing in the most amount of events ever. Ever.
Also, this crash is exactly what is to be expected because of the new pre-release schedule setup.
Old classic cards don't usually move much without a reason, I think the reason Undicovered Paradise nudged up for its synergy with Land Tax.
Undiscovered paradise moved up because of it's interaction with Bloodghast in Legacy (Classic) Dredge decks. Obviously, when you need almost no mana and want landfall every turn, it actually begins to make this (terrible?) card look pretty good.
Not sure Id characterize Undiscovered Paradise as Terrible it had its day as a great card.
wouldn't thawing glaciers do the same thing?
its too slow.and dredge in classic plays zero basics i think
Does anyone know where we can get the footage for the live event finals. I wasn't able to watch the PT top 8 live and I understand it was shown during lunch time then but I can't seem to find it posted anywhere.
I'm also getting the error on the charts that Paul describes. :(
Linked on the right hand side, under the first embedded Youtube video on this page.
My bad. I didn't say it clearly :/. I see the PT top 8 itself, but I can't find the MTGO live event footage that they said they showed during the lunch break. ...The finals of the draft that was on mtgo and for $5000.
I'll check into the charts... Not sure where they got disconnected.. Sorry about that folks!
i played in the MTGO live event at gen con.. wasn't nearly this much fanfare.
Interesting! What were your thoughts about it at GenCon?
How was the competition level, were the events popular?