Introduction
Editorial Section
Discussion Items
Card Price Tables *spoilers*
Card Price Graphs *spoilers*
Tournament Details
Spoiler Section *spoilers*
Conclusion
Introduction:
Hello hello hello! Quite a week for MTGO. If you haven't heard.. we're getting PTQ's. Quite a few, actually! I think this is good news for MTGO but as always there's more than one side to every coin. This coin has two very varying sides. On the positive side this will assuredly bring more players into MTGO. On the scary side it underscores a lot of issues of collusion that have always plagued MTGO. I look forward to seeing the impacts that these announcements have for MTGO.
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Editorial Section:
What a difference a year can make...
Around this time last year we were neck deep in MED2 and things were definitely different! At this time in Master's Edition 2's lifespan the duals had skyrocketed far above their opening price, despite still being in a release time. So what happened, and why didn't it happen this time? That's a great question and an even better story.
In the beginning...
But to fully understand what happened with MED2's duals, it will probably help to know what happened with MED1's chase rares... or um, chase rare. Force of Will for those that don't know, is the crown jewel of Master's Edition 1. MED1 had a lot of nostalgia to be sure and even some of its "weaker" cards made Classic tournament decks back in the day. However, in comparison to MED2's duals + Necropotence + Mana Crypt + Imperial Seal it was far weaker than MED2. It also was released during one of the darkest times of MTGO's life. If you were playing 2+ years ago, you'll probably remember the all too frequent Release Week Implosions that accompanied any big releases as well as many of the small releases. Not to mention that it was believed by many at the time that MTGO V3 would never be released and we were cursed to hobble along through eternity on V2.5's failing architecture... To put it mildly, MED1 was an underdog. It was a Classic set with one big rare launched during a time when many people were giving up on MTGO. As such, the price of that one rare skyrocketed after people realized that, well, it's Force of freakin' Will. Also, it was around the end of MED1's run that the head honcho of MTGO (Worth Wollpert) dropped the bombshell that there were no plans to reprint FoW in any other MED sets and that this was, in all likelihood, the one easy chance to get it. Speculator's bought the price of Force to the stratosphere. In fact, during its ascension it surpassed the Big Four from IPA (Deed, Mage, Chant and ...). It stayed high at this point as no one who bought them going up would sell them and many of the speculators expected them to go up, or at least maintain. The stage is now set for people with the mindset that buying MEDx on speculation is a 'good idea'.
And yay verily, it did come to pass...
Fast forward about 9 months and out comes MED2, but lo, there are only 5 duals not 10 as was believed. Reactions are fairly upset and the set has it's own laundry list of problems. First of all, there's a lot of bad rares. I'll name some but I'll have to look them up as I can't even think of them off the top of my head. On top of that the set size is prohibitively large. The odds of hitting a dual are quite low, and the other cards aren't able to really hold their own value up enough to balance out the unbelievably niche rares. And the last strike on MED2 was the sheer number of reprints from the Coldsnap->Ice Age preconstructed decks. Mixing high set size with low quality cards and lots of already available cards does not a set sell. Speculators from the MED1 era recall the profitable scenario that buying up Force of Will's became and decide to try again with the duals. But there's a snag. There's a LOT more players on now that we're well into V3's lifespan. This means that there are more players, dealers, and hoarders to try to speculate on the cards than there was in MED1's time. All of these people buying, buying buying spike the prices of the duals higher than any week 2 increase I had ever witnessed (and I have yet to see it duplicated).
"But hammy", you're saying, "that didn't happen this time!". And you'd be dead right. I have a more than sneaking suspicion that WotC saw this happen and it was this lopsided availability of MED2 duals that led to the sweetest 16 player sealed swiss prize payouts I've seen. And due to the cadre of bots set on 'buy the duals' mode, WotC essentially subsidized the secondary market and flooded it with a huge amount of dual lands right before it went off sale. And this eventually led to a hefty decline. Why the decline? Because like every other speculation bubble it can't sustain itself. The increase wasn't based on actual demand, but more about people betting on the value increasing. Since there were enough people making this bet the price ran up. The bubble started to burst as we got closer to MED3 and people realized that they could wait and buy the enemy duals. The speculators realized this as well of course and started to try to move inventory... but it wasn't moving. The speculation price had priced themselves right out of the market. So this leads to a situation where the previous speculators are sitting on inventory of their last speculation attempt and evidently realizing that the amount of Classic growth needed to make it worthwhile is just not feasible. Which has thankfully led to them keeping out of the MED3 release events.
But the interesting thing is I'm not sure if speculation on MED3's cards would work even if they tried. Unlike the previous MED sets, this one is NOT the underdog of the year. It opened to the second highest day one sales of a set this year, and has been drafted and sealed played like hotcakes. Why? The largest reason seems to be the fact that it's going to be a format for the Season's Magic Online Champions Series event and being proficient in it will be necessary to snag a trip to Rome.
All of this illustrates the amazing changes we've seen in the past year. Namely player growth and tournament growth in the past 12 months have been quite impressive.
An almost related topic...
Speaking of tournaments there are a couple more things I want to talk about while I (hopefully) have your attention. The first being that the MTGO Pro Tour Qualifier schedule has been announced, and is located here [link to ptq schedule]. For those of you who aren't familiar with what this means and what the importance is please allow me to shed some light on this very momentous turn of events. The Pro Tour is Magic's Big League. It's the level where the best of the best rise and where the players play for huge stakes (PT Austin has a 200K+ prize pool, for instance). Pro Tour hopefuls are known to chase Pro Tour Qualifier events in an attempt to grind into just the chance to play for the big money at the Pro Tour. And now, heaven help us, MTGO is getting a slew of sealed events that can eventually qualify a player for this top of the line paper tournament. To say that this is a 'big deal' is vastly underestimating the impact that this will have on MTGO. Looking at our list we have a smattering of M10 sealed and then a host of Zendikar sealed as well. Which means that if you had any hopes for M10 to regain some value you can just put that in the ground right now. I suspect that most of these will be insanely large events since every single paper player that wants to qualify can join them. Let me restate that. Every. Single Player. In the world. There are rules and restrictions around this of course, like picking only one PTQ Feeder event, etc. However, the turnout for this is going to be huge which can and will translate into a lot of those sets being opened all at once. Personally, I expect them to create a similar amount of new product as a weekend of release events would, which is to say "a lot of product".
With another almost related side topic...
On the rather opposite end of our tournament spectrum we have an upcoming Tribal Classic Player Run event happening this weekend. The prize payout is very interesting. For each player in the event another ticket is added to the prize pool by the sponsor. So if just you shows up, that's +1 ticket. If you bring five friends, that's +6 tickets to the pool... and none of it costs you a dime. Just show up with a Classic legal Tribal deck and battle it out. Prizes go to the top four players and more details are here [insert link to PRE]
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Discussion Items:
Pro Tour San Diego Qualifiers on MTGO!!!!!:
You'll see me link this a lot in the next few weeks. That's because it's possibly one of the biggest announcements we've had this year. At least in terms of growth and WotC backing of MTGO as a platform.
Some redemption out of stock:
Which ones? No idea the announcement didn't say. My guess? M10. No idea about anything else though... using the method of 'look in the store and figure it out' nets me the following ones missing: Conflux Regular, Shards Foil, Dissension Foil, and Ravnica Regular. Hopefully that's all of them.
Pre-Con Contest (BIG PRIZES!!!)
WotC has fired up the precon contests again and the prizes are fantastic! You can find the contests here: ClassicQuarter and here: PureMTGO.
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Price Tables:
Show Spoilers!
Vampire Nocturnus leaps up on speculation buying now that Vampires are looking like a hot tribe in Zendikar. Also making some large bounds are the key components to the Classic Dredge deck. Looks like people have caught on that Bazaar of Baghdad is in MED3 which gives us an almost exact Vintage deck to play with...
MED3, on the other hand, has led the downward trend thanks to a metric ton of it being opened through events. I like that so many of the MED3 cards follow the exact same trending curve. Just one of those interesting things that makes me go 'hmmmm.....' when I run the numbers.
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Price Graphs:
Show Spoilers
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Tournament:
I was going to discuss a bit about the MED3 champs events (happening soon) and the MED3 MOCS events (also coming soon) but that was before they announced MTGO PTQ's. Reactions in the twitterverse are mixed... but I thought I'd highlight a couple interesting ones:
Anyone want to hire a "MTGO PTQ Consultant" for PT San Diego...? With "real time consulting", your chances of qualifying greatly improve! - Patrick Chapin
I have love for the gamers in remote areas that cant PTQ, but putting 16 PTQ's online is the most vile deed they've ever committed. - Kyle Sanchez
With the new MTGO PTQs announced, I may have to bring back the tradition of Big Screen MTGO at my apartment... - Brian Kibler
And the fun goes on! But I'll leave it at those three which sort of illustrate a few things I've come to remember about MTGO.
1) MTGO is hated, detested, and loathed by a not small portion of the paper playing community.
2) Any large event is going to be accompanied by mistrust and frustration.
3) WotC is going to have to a lot of work to keep these events having negative "Tiago" stigmas attached to them.
Personally, I love the PTQ's on MTGO, and who knows, I may try them. But if I do, it will be under the full knowledge that I may be playing against Joe Blow. Or Joe Blow + Patrick Chapin (or some other high level player that's already qualified), or five guys all playing around one computer and working to get each one qualified in turn. Such is the life of these events, I imagine.
This move is a big deal for MTGO. It's a signal that WotC has our back, and believes in the medium as a truly legitimate contender for the future.
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Spoilers:
Show Spoilers
I'm going to give four specific cards some attention today because they really grabbed my attention. And as usual all data is from mtgsalvation.com and all cards should be considered rumors only until they are in your hands!
First up is a saucy little Blue common:
Ior Ruin Expedition - 1U
Enchantment (Common)
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a quest counter on Ior Ruin Expedition.
Remove three quest counters from Ior Ruin Expedition and sacrifice it: Draw two cards.
What I like about it? For 2 mana you get to set up an instant speed card draw for later in the game when you want to use it. The big drawback is that this doesn't let you draw out of a bad mana hand like older two mana draw spells did, but for a 'new blue' draw spell, I like it a lot.
Next up is another common, but Green this time!
Khalni Heart Expedition - 1G
Enchantment (Common)
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a quest counter on Khalni Heart Expedition.
Remove three quest counters from Khalni Heart Expedition and sacrifice it: Search your library for up to two basic land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.
Similar to the blue insta-draw above, this is another card that lets you put up a little mana now and get something bigger than usual as the game wears on. Also, in green, this is a breeze to trigger, and nabs you two more landfall triggers.
Speaking of Landfall triggers...
Lotus Cobra - 1G
Creature - Snake (Mythic Rare)
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Its scales contain the essence of thousands of lotus blooms.
2/1
Great googly-moogly, this is ridiculous. Flores expounded upon its ramping possibilities, and I have to agree. Free ramping is insane. Free ramping on 2 power for 2 mana creature is double-do-decka-insane.
And rounding up my last one for the week is a familiar feeling card:
Journey to Nowhere - 1W
Enchantment (Common)
When Journey to Nowhere enters the battlefield, exile target creature.
When Journey to Nowhere leaves the battlefield, return the exiled creature to the battlefield under its owner's control.
It's like... Oblivion Ring, only just creatures. This seems very good, however, I'm not convinced that removing one mana is worth the completely inflexible nature of this card compared to O-Ring... a tester to be sure
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Conclusion:
What a week, and a doozy of an announcement for the MTGO tournament community to boot. What are your thoughts about MTGO PTQ's? Love 'em, hate 'em?
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44 Comments
Nice article as per usual hammy. I am astounded by some of the price increases. Well astounded might be overstating but Vampire Nocturnus at 10 because of the vamps in Zendikar?? Slightly insane imho.
I love the new landfall cards that have been spoiled (officially now) but I don't think the Cobra is better thna say a Hierarch which is still a great card but not a bomb. As I said in BDM's post on FB about it, its a fantastic enabler but it's still an enabler. On the other hand it might be incredibly broken in Zendikar because of the many cards that trigger off of landfall.
Journey to nowhere does seem lame compared to O-ring but think of this: O-ring is widely hated by those it hoses. So Journey will be narrowly hated. But still hated.
RE the modo ptqs...well all I can say is "PTQ online 30 tickets(Im guessing), breakfast $5, Playing in PTQ at home in your pjs instead of standing in a dozen lines to get to play in a hot crowded room: Priceless!"
On the other hand the paranoia about collusion should be entertaining to read about in the coming weeks. I seriously doubt it will be a huge factor despite the fact that some people have proven willing to cheat to win in the past. The very good MODO players will have the edge. In my opinion anyway. (This won't include me though as I have no intention of playing in PTQs ever again, much less flying off to where-ever to play magic. (EDIT: and on rereading the last sentence I realized that implied something I do not mean. Reason 2: Im a horrible player.) I do wish those who do lots of luck and may the servers remain stable if you win and crash when you lose. :D)
Interesting perspective, and logical reasoning as far as the pricing of the MED3 fetch-rares.
One question. Why the dramatic spike in the price of Vampire Nocturnus?
Hiring a PTQ Consultant. Look I kow Chapin is a great player, and by and large the best pro players are out there playing paper magic and making chump change doing it - but there is a dark side hint of "Online players are inferior to paper players" in that, which I think might still persist.
I, for one would be very happy to see a MO player wipe the floor on the PT - and do it without Chapin's help.
I don't like the blue drawer for mutiple reasons:
1. Comes down turn 2, with cards coming your way turn 5 (as a baseline, excluding fetch land shenanigans).
2. Thus... eats your turn 2 mana, no longer open for counters. Given the efficciency of creatures nowaday, I don't think it's a good move.
3. We've been given 3 mana sorcery card drawer (like draw 3, discard 2 or variation of such) in most past sets. You'd usually play your draw later with mana still open for counters. So there is no real gain of having it costs only two but with a long delay built-in.
4. Provides a target for naturalize cards, Given o0rin and the new o-ring (and the efficient naturalize with a body in Alara and Zendikar), you're likely to not even draw cards.
All in all, me no likey. Then I'll be proven wrong when Zendikar comes out and I'll have to eat my words. :)
My main beef with Zendikar though is the sheer number of constructed playable mythics and constructed-required mythics. There's already about 6 mythics that are surely playable and a few other that may turn out playable too. Add to this the fetch lands, Zendikar looks to be the most expensive set in a long long time.
I would hire someone to get me back on the tour. I lucked into my only appearance, and have fallen short at dozens of ptq's sense then. It pains me to get so close in the top eight to not get there at all.
So in short, I know I am a good player, but I know there are plenty of players better than me, that would like to make a quick dollar.
Great article as always, you missed the link for the Tribal Classic Player Run event. Please could you post it as a comment, cheers
Here is the link for the PRE this weekend:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75846/20073605/TRIBAL_APOCAL...
Registration starts at 1:30 with the event starting at 2:00pm est. Everything will be occuring in /join Tribal
See you there.
wow journey to nowhere is really really good for pauper ww! 2 mana and 3 mana difference is HUUUUGE!
super informative article, i can't thank you enough for writing such timely and informative mtgo articles week in and week out, thanks hammy!
K.H.E. and L.C. (abbreviated in case someone reads the comments who doesn't want to be spoiled) are already confirmed as you can find them in the visual spoiler on wizards.com (with links to the pages where they were spoiled).
Fact is...MTGO has no way of keeping your friends from being in the same room, calling you on their cellphone, etc. People will play as a team. That much is guaranteed.
However, the writer says that "1) MTGO is hated, detested, and loathed by a not small portion of the paper playing community."... Fact is you are not allowed to get help from others in a PTQ. Yet with these PTQ's on MODO you most certainly will play against people who have help from others.
I dont say that because I hate MODO...just that its a fact.
Also, I'm pretty sure that most of the people quoted play on MODO quite a bit. Its not a paper playing community hatred issue at all. Just a question about fairness. The "no help from others" PTQ rule is unenforceable on MODO and therefore some players will have a significant competitive advantage. Simple as that.
-M
So w/ Landfall and the cards you previewed, you'd get double counters for putting a terramorphic expanse into play right? one for playing that land, one for saccing it and putting a basica land into play. am i understanding this mechanic correctly as it relates to expanse?
That is correct. Which is why Knight of the Reliquary has jumped up, and why the new fetches actually make any sense at all in this set...
Kyle stated (later) that he used to play MTGO but no longer does. I don't know about pchapin, but the other obviously does play MtGO already.
I had actually forgotten how much the vocal haters really despise MtGO. But this topic reminded me about that, as did a few topics on the MTGSalvation boards this week that I stumbled into...
Meh, they better get used to it because MTGO is here to stay.
"3) WotC is going to have to a lot of work to keep these events having negative "Tiago" stigmas attached to them."
what is this supposed to mean?
We could launch equal complaints against paper magic. Online, plays are never ambiguous and you can't lie to the judge about what happened. The opponent can't stack his deck so I don't have to watch him like we're suddenly playing Three Card Monty. You never lose a game for forgetting to de-sideboard, no one ever over-draws or under-draws a card. And your opponent can't stall you into a draw, he can only stall himself into a loss.
Sanchez is right that they're different, but I don't think that paper is the clear winner in the comparison.
Now as for playing against a Patrick Chapin, this is a PTQ. If you can't hold up against players of that quality, you have no business aiming for the PT in the first place. This isn't like cloning a pro at every FNM in town. This is high-level competition where you expect competition to be. And for the players using the help, if they need in-game assistance then they're only setting up for failure once they get to San Diego.
Now with top quality games being played online (this goes for MOCS too) here's what I would like to see: broadcast replays that SHOW THE PLAYERS HANDS! PT broadcasts can't really do that because a camera over each player's shoulder at all times would interfere. (Though they could do a better job showing the actual table instead of extreme closeups of a player's nostrils.) But there's no excuse online for not sharing that information post-match. And it would directly lead to higher quality analysis and the ability to learn from pro play.
In fact the replays already record that information, because you can see your hand in your own replay. So all they need to do is queue it up with a "watch as" feature where you choose the player whose view you have, and there we are.
Yeah.. I was wondering the same thing myself. I tried a google search and he won the MTGO Invitational in 2007... but was there a scandal? Was he sharing accounts?
i think he was letting other people play his drafts or he was playing them for a friends account or something but dont quote me on it because i dont want to spread lies if im wrong
A quote from Tiago's article on SSG:
"I recognized Nao from MTGO. He's a Dragonquest (his clan), my friends are also Dragonquests, so I usually finish premier events for them on their accounts."
Article here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/coklimited/8923_So_Close_Yet_So_Far_P...
He's far from the only one whose done that, but sort of became the poster child for it.
thanks for clarifying
I don't really see what's wrong with this. It's not allowed in paper magic but this isn't the same game at all, and the rules are completely different. It's convenient having a friend play a round or two for you if you have to leave for a couple hours or take a lunch break.
Although sharing accounts is expressly forbidden by WotC...
I think the online PTQs will be closer to Pro Tours or at the very least Grand Prix, as anyone in the world can (and will) play in them, including people who have been to multiple Pro Tours but may not be on the train.
It' not allowed in MTGO: Expressly forbidden in the TOS amongst other places. In paper, judges are able to enforce this, online, there's no real way of doing so. There are trips to San Diego at stake, and the higher the stakes, the more someone is likely to cast aside morality to reach them. Having someone else play for you on MTGO is the online equivalent of concealing the key card of your deck in your lap, or deliberately looking at your opponent's hand in the reflection of the sunglasses around his neck. Because the chance of enforcement is low, the chance of breaking the rules and wiping one's backside with the TOS is high. The prize is massive, the rule is almost unenforceable, so a substantial number of pros will cheat to win.
I don't think WOTC's definition of account sharing is the same as your's, because there is proof of many online players "sharing accounts" without consequence. Not only is it impossible to prove that different players share an account, but different people could be playing at the same time or merely "asking for advice" from another player. I play MTGO with friends all the time, I'm sure it gives me an edge over my normal play but I consider it part of the game. Trying to forbid and enforce that would be impossible and counterproductive.
If you want to pay someone to play for you, I say go for it because there's no way the cost/reward adds up in your favor.
You are right in that it is unenforceable, but that doesn't make it legal. It would be interesting to see if people were allowed to play at San Diego the same way they qualified: If a team of people behind one account win, then seeing that team play as one would be quite the spectacle. I imagine their opponents offline would be extremely annoyed about it. How about their opponents online?
Online magic is not the same as paper magic. If you qualify you should understand that you'll be playing under completely different rules at the PT itself.
I didn't say playing as a team is legal, I said it's not illegal. WOTC has clearly shown that they do not care about who's playing, as long as they're following client rules. This may change for the PTQ but for most events it's certainly the status quo.
From what I can tell, the TOS is very vague when it comes to things like this, perhaps intentionally. It's not clear whether you can ask a friend for advice, but most pros and players do it anyways. I have yet to see a banning or any punishment due to this, even when the player has publicly acknowledged it or made videos of it.
There have been long forum debates on this subject, unfortunately lost with the community site change at Wizards. The question is one of integrity: If the integrity of the players cannot be confirmed, what does that do to the integrity of the contest? It doesn't do MTGO any favours if someone gets bootstrapped to the pro tour only to scrub out early on, whilst someone playing honestly languishes at home. I agree that it can't be stopped, but I consider this a major impediment rather than a 'just the way things are'.
It's not a major impediment, it's fun. Seriously, try playing with friends on skype or in the same room, it helps your game and it's a good time for everyone involved. Every game benefits from a social environment, why is magic different?
If you're really concerned about "teams", get a team yourself. Like I said, it's not expressly forbidden unless WOTC makes specific PTQ rules. Even if you don't, the advantage is certainly not insurmountable (or even very large at all).
I've skyped whilst playing, mainly in the multi room, and I have no qualms whatsoever about fostering a social environment on MTGO. Is there a difference between sitting down at a 2HG or chaos game and actually being able to talk with your partner or opponents, and having a group of players working together to win a qualifier? I'd argue the former is no different from a kitchen table game at someone's house, and the latter is usually subject to adjudication.
That sounds like you morally endorse breaking the rules (aka cheating) to get ahead when it is not feasible to prevent you from doing so. Doesn't that bother you at all? For me my gut kicks a bit when I consider actions like that. Having a visceral reaction to a shady plan tells me it isn't the right thing to do. I understand the spikish need to win at all costs but I can't sacrifice my integrity to do so. Even when there will be no outside consequences. That doesn't make me better than you in anyway, just different I guess.
When did I endorse cheating? I said I sometimes play magic with friends by the computer, I don't consider it cheating either by the rules or morally when respectable pros do the same. For me, playing with friends is fun.
Some people will pay pros to play for them, and I don't care because they're the biggest losers. At most there will be 2-3 people who actually do this, and they probably won't even win and blow hundreds of dollars.
'Respectable Pros' are not exactly a good moral guideline. For example, Olivier Ruel is highly respectable, a Hall-Of-Fame inductee at the first opportunity, and twice suspended by the DCI, cheating by looking at his opponent's deck whilst shuffling. For those who follow in Mike Long's footsteps, anything you can get away with is fine.
it happens and often ,there is a saying in certain sports .
if you're not cheating you're not trying hard enough
Out of interest, are you the same anonymous as above or a different anonymous?
You are quite correct: The goal is winning, by fair means or foul. You don't need Judges at a kitchen table: The rewards for cheating are as substantial as the methods to get them are morally repugnant.
Loooove the individual card price tracking thingies. I never knew Tarmo hit over 40 tix!
What day of the week and where do you get your prices from? Nocturnus has been at 14 on MTGOtraders since yesterday.
i would give ham a few days leniency since ive written an article for this site before, and waiting till thursday to do something like pricing would definitely be tough especially since josh does need some to edit i would assume.
Another note, while sharing accounts is wrong and i fully understand it unfortunately there is no true way to enforce it and if we do choose to play in the ptq we may be screwed over by it.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
i can stand med3!!!!!!!!
Please don't stop writing them. May I ask what program or how you chart prices the way you do?
I get the prices from Heath at www.mtgotraders.com, which I then plug into a MySQL DB and chart the prices and build the html tables and links using a custom VB.Net application that I wrote. Which is why I can now output 40 charts a week while still providing the same data as before.
One positive impact of these new charting endeavors is that I think I can now move my price calculations to Thursday which would greatly help their releancy issues that pop up from time to time. In fact I'll be trying that next week!
Ok, to be honest I'm looking to buy mtgo cards and or complete sets of every currently available standard set, full playsets. I want, I need to make the move from paper magic to online magic, it just suits my needs 100% so long as my internet connection remains sound.
Can any of you good people help me find the best deals so I can make a good decision. I'm looking to spend serious dollars, Zendikar I assume will be costly to get a playset. This is really important to me, and I really don't have elsewhere to go and look. This site's community is promising. Please feel free to guide me with an email message at plusua88@gmail.com
Im looking to get Shards of Alara, Conflux, Alara Reborn, and M10 playsets x4 each. Help me out guys! Thanks.
Frank
If you're going to buy the full set, a major seller like MTGOTraders is the way to go.
As Hamtastic's charts will show you, timing is everything. For Zendikar, if you can wait until 2 weeks after the set is released online it will be a lot cheaper. By that time release events will have happened in great quantities and online card prices are really driven by that draft-fueled supply.
Best thing i can tell ya is the only 100% trust worthy way when you're that new is to buy from MTGOTRADERS.com
While you might be able to shave a few dollars here or there at random places i doubt you'll find a much faster or more reliable way to get what you're looking for.
also there is a 10% discount on paypal orders. traders and heath in general are top notch and you will be pleased with the deal
Yeah, I did some research and as for security and what not, looks like MTGO is "the" place to shop for MTGO cards, well sets in my case. Although I have yet to compare prices offered from all the researching. Hopefully MTGO will see me, and others, as potential long time customers and offer a discount of some kind. I'll keep tabs and maybe rant about it later on.
I read the article and all the comments and I think AJ_Impy is assuming something that isn't necessarily true. Just because someone is getting help from a friend in a PTQ doesn't mean they will win. If someone isn't a skilled enough player to win, who say's that their friend is? And if their friend is wouldn't they just enter the PTQ themselves? I sincerely doubt that people playing as a "team" will alter the outcome of the online PTQs that will be on MOL. A team of mediocre players is still mediocre. The better players will still come out on top.