hamtastic's picture
By: hamtastic, Erik Friborg
Jan 05 2010 12:16pm
5
Login to post comments
3285 views


You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

MP3 Download

News:
From the Director's Chair: Some good tidbits about MTGO and the future of MTG.  Namely that Legacy will be unveiled this year!  What this means for Classic and Classic based sets is yet to be seen.  I think it's safe to say that there will be some very large changes to the way eternal formats are handled on MTGO.  I suspect that we'll see some very aggressive dates on the other Legacy sets that will be following Urza's. 

Also upcoming soon is that with Worldwake will see the return the 60 card pre built decks for MTGO.  Except that now they're called "intro packs" and cost $1.00 more but come with a full booster to add to them.  All I can say is FINALLY!  This was a huge problem with the previous version as it never wound up being enough to actually get a new player up and running on its own.

We also had two new cards spoiled (mtgsalvation.com):
Jorga Warcaller
1/1 for G, Multikick 1g +1/+1 counters, elves get +1 /+1 for each counter on this.  Elf Lord that scales up as the game goes and can be played on turn one or three or five for different levels of awesome and power.  We'll have to wait and see what how it works for Elves decks as the "Lord" slot is already pretty crowded, all things considered.

Also coming out this week was Comet Storm; xRR, instant, x damage to target, pay 1 to add an additional target.  Essentially Fireball as an Epic Mythic spell.  Or something.

Prices:
Ravnica duals keep climbing but have slowed lately as well as other Ravnica/Mirrodin artifacts.  If you've been holding out some cards to sell for the Extended season I don't think we've seen the pinnacle yet, but we can't be too far away yet. In Standard sets, Zendikar continues to plummet and most non-Baneslayer related M10 cards have also been shrinking of late as well.

PureMTGO News:
Congrats to Paul for winning the Comment contest... he has now received his very own foil Wrath of God!  Look out for more content contests in the next few weeks!

Article of the Week:
MTGO Replays: San Juan PTQ January 2nd, 2010 - Sebastian Park

Contact:
hamtastic@puremtgo.com

21 Comments

Thank you very much for the by Paul Leicht at Tue, 01/05/2010 - 15:21
Paul Leicht's picture
5

Thank you very much for the Wrath, it's very pretty and I don't normally enjoy foils but this one is great. I hope that deck list serves you well. I had to go back and search to remember what it was. I missed your fellow writer's voices but it was a different experience to listen to just you. You seemed very quiet which is dramatically different from when the 3 of you are chatting and having a good time.

The news about Legacy doesn't seem to affect me though if it changes Tribal Wars it may have a larger impact than I realized. I wonder if the intro packs are realy worth $13.00...unless the cards in it have lasting power it seems so pricy for a few rares and 'playable' uncommons. The added booster seems like a throw in to sweeten the deal but it still seems higher than I'd want to pay as a newcomer (if I was) considering how little you can pay for cards online.

Not too surprising to see Zen and M10 prices going down again in the wake of the number of drafts firing. (Or so it seems to my uneducated eye.)

i dont know i used to love by ShardFenix at Tue, 01/05/2010 - 18:21
ShardFenix's picture

i dont know i used to love picking up 2ea. of the pre-con decks and combining them into slightly better casual fun decks.

Might be a challenge for some by Paul Leicht at Tue, 01/05/2010 - 20:20
Paul Leicht's picture

Might be a challenge for some but Id find that utterly boring and depressing when I faced a well tuned "casual" deck.

intro packs by Katastrophe at Tue, 01/05/2010 - 22:15
Katastrophe's picture

(I'm still listening to the podcast.)

Until you get to the point where you're building tuned casual decks, this is the way to go. Like, when your collection isn't enough to win with Battle of Wits.

I think the change was best for the paper people. Before they weren't even getting a legal deck. Online though you can't even log in without buying that $10 intro pack, and that comes with a pile of commons and an additional booster. So online it was never an issue. But the paper players hated the 2009 intro packs.

Good point. I don't play by Paul Leicht at Tue, 01/05/2010 - 22:25
Paul Leicht's picture

Good point. I don't play paper any more so I don't run into new paper players. I used to give away 100s of commons to new players (not thousands as I rarely had THAT many extras). That I think is how many people get started. Someone gives them some cards to supplement what they have bought. As long as that worked to grow the player base WotC didn't worry about what their decks looked like. Now that is probably hard to do, since many of the major clubs like Neutral Ground (in nyc) closed their doors. Without as many gathering places players may have a harder time getting started competitively (note I don't mean in ptqs or anything of that nature just winning games vs other players) without buying singles or at least buying the intro packs. The upside side (if it can be called that) is there is a lot more info online than when the game was starting out. (The internet was barely a thing in the public consciousness at the time.)

for a newcomer who dosent by whiffy at Tue, 01/05/2010 - 22:54
whiffy's picture

for a newcomer who dosent know about the game, 1300 bucks seems like a good deal for a deck to play with out of the box and a bonus booster. I would have rather paid 1300 for this intro pack then 1250 for a starter deck of ice age and 4th edetion which is what i started the game with.

those fourth edition starter by ShardFenix at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 00:54
ShardFenix's picture

those fourth edition starter decks were awful. It was just a tournament pack...couldnt build a deck our of it. My mom had bought it for me since she knew my friend was trying to teach me the game. I was like 8 so she sat and listened as i forved her to learn then asked how i made decks. I said i don't know there arent enough cards...lol, i was serious but next day i got 2 more startes and about 10 boosters. this addiction now is all my moms fault.

LEGACY by Katastrophe at Tue, 01/05/2010 - 23:23
Katastrophe's picture
5

Nothing else besides LEGACY really matters. :P

So you're expecting it happen in the late fall? Makes sense. You said that you're considering selling off Classic cards to play Legacy. But Legacy = dual lands + Force of Will. (Similar to how the symbol of Vintage is the P9.) And if you think about it, what Vintage cards do we have that won't work in Legacy?

Everything expensive on MTGO is good for Legacy: duals, FoW, Mox Diamond, Lion's Eye Diamond, Null Rod, Daze, Wasteland, and Leyline are all Legacy legal! There are only four cards worth selling: Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Strip Mine, and Oath. Outside of that though, Channel is nothing, Black Vise is nothing, Skullclamp is nothing, even Illusionary Mask is nothing. And of course, Imperial Recuiter and Ravages of War are also nothing, if you want to play those Legacy decks that you couldn't play in paper.

I'm looking at the Legacy list now. Here's what "Classic would lose" today, and what those same cards are worth today. The complete Legacy banned list is much longer and contains cards we don't even have yet.

* Balance - 4
* Bazaar of Baghdad - 6
* Black Vise
* Channel
* Demonic Consultation
* Demonic Tutor - 12
* Earthcraft - 7
* Flash - 3.75
* Goblin Recruiter
* Gush - 3
* Hermit Druid - 3.5
* Illusionary Mask
* Imperial Seal
* Land Tax
* Mana Crypt
* Mana Drain - 10
* Mind Twist
* Mind's Desire
* Necropotence
* Oath of Druids - 47 (the price of *right now*, this one moves 10 times a week)
* Skullclamp
* Strip Mine - 10
* Tinker - 5
* Vampiric Tutor - 37
* Worldgorger Dragon

No price means that it is two tickets or less. Cards that are restricted in Classic are usually undervalued because everyone only needs one. And historically, "type 1 restricted = type 1.5 banned", which describes many of the cards listed above. (Exiled, lol.) So that explains it.

Classic duals are definitely going up. I can't think of anything right now that is under-valued which will be worth more when Legacy officially appears. Maybe Aether Vial?

tl;dr - if you missed the Classic boat, I think you already missed the Legacy boat too. The least you can do is buy enemy duals and enemy fetches today while both are still in print.

Thats a heck of a lot of by Paul Leicht at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 00:03
Paul Leicht's picture

Thats a heck of a lot of information for one post... You should think about doing a full blow article on the subject + add deck lists etc.

A far more interesting article by dangerlinto at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 10:31
dangerlinto's picture

Would be to look at the price of the Decks to purchase in Legacy, and the price online.

You can talk about how expensive Dual Lands are and Lion's Eye Diamond are online, but a) the duals themselves are around half the price online than even the revised versions are in paper, and b) for every card that's a little more expensive online (Diamond) there's a card like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale or Moat that are like 40x - 150x more expensive in paper.

Legacy online will be cheaper then Legacy in paper, with the caveat that if there is a mad rush for paper players, that could adversely affect the price of digital cards in an upward trend.

However, I don't think that mad rush is coming. You know, that guy looking hard at buying a playset of LED for over $100? He'll probably just up and forget about joining online until Land Grant is available so he can play Belcher. And The winning decklist from SCG's last Legacy open? Whoops! Sorry Replenish - the key card in your deck is sadly missing.

In fact, despite the fact we have so much, many key Legacy cards are missing from MTGO right now, and will still be at least up until MED4 and past that with Urza's Destiny and then Masques.

It might be more of a slow trickle. Faux-Legacy isn't going to appeal to a lot of Legacy paper players for a little while.

Lastly, there are several cards that are currently (IMHO) underpriced for both their power and their usage in Legacy... time to buy them soon.

No need to apologise: The by AJ_Impy at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 00:58
AJ_Impy's picture

No need to apologise: The harshness of the Minnesota winter certainly trumps anything here in Blighty.

Didnt see it mentioned by Anonymous at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 14:17
Anonymous's picture

Didnt see it mentioned anywhere here:
Also starting on January 6th, Daily Events, Premier Events and Weekend Challenges will NO longer give out promo cards as part of the prizes.

Any of u know what their reasons are why they did this?

...

The Shards of Alara Block Booster Pack (Premium Foil) will not be sold in the Magic Online store, but will be available in other ways.

Any of u know how?

As for the promos we can only by Paul Leicht at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 14:42
Paul Leicht's picture

As for the promos we can only guess. They determined promos weren't helping sales.

As for the packs I am going to go ahead and guess as replacement prizes for Events instead of Arb packs.

As for the promos we can only by Paul Leicht at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 15:32
Paul Leicht's picture

Woohoo repeating post...yay lag? Oh wait this time it was the 504 that caused that.

Didnt see it mentioned by Anonymous at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 14:23
Anonymous's picture

Didnt see it mentioned anywhere here:
Also starting on January 6th, Daily Events, Premier Events and Weekend Challenges will NO longer give out promo cards as part of the prizes.

Any of u know what their reasons are why they did this?

...

The Shards of Alara Block Booster Pack (Premium Foil) will not be sold in the Magic Online store, but will be available in other ways.

Any of u know how?

maybe it has to do with the by ShardFenix at Wed, 01/06/2010 - 15:01
ShardFenix's picture

maybe it has to do with the fact that giving away so many promo's kinda negates the whole idea of promo. all i know is most promo's ive bought are the same price as the nonpromo versions...mkes it kind of pointless for them to exist

Promos aren't pointless! by blau at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 10:43
blau's picture

Promos aren't pointless! They are fake foil versions of fake cards that can't be redeemed and have no inherent value. Foil promos fit in nicely with my all foil card deck for a digital product so that every person I play online is so impressed by all my fake foil cards with no real value...... wait. Let me try again.

I love promos. They allow me to make my 5-color Commander Deck using nothing but promo cards. It irritates and annoys my opponents while they watch me stupid deck do nothing. It's my only way to "be that guy" in commander..... wait. One more try.

Seriously, I like promos. I guess I am one of those people that is wow'ed by alternative art. I got into Magic because of the fun and because of the art. I don't like the idea of promos becoming hard to get. Granted I buy all mine since I work a lot and don't have the hours it takes to play in events. So making promos harder to get will raise their prices for me, which I don't like.

i like promo's too, but what by ShardFenix at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 11:23
ShardFenix's picture

i like promo's too, but what is "promo" about them when everyone and their grandmothers all have playsets?

That was my point. I don't by blau at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 12:25
blau's picture

That was my point. I don't have playsets, since I never get to play in any events. I have to purchase each of them individually, which comes at a cost to me, so I like that the prices are low. I do have friends that have more than playsets of some of them, and for that I would say, maybe giving them out for the daily events is a mistake. I have one friend who plays in a daily event every day. Why not just give those promo lands for the daily events? Who really needs 27 Tormont's Crypt? I agree the amount of promos circulating does lessen their "value," but only if you assume that the words "promotional" and "valuable" mean the same thing. Personally, I don't. When I buy a magazine and it has a free cologne sample in it, I never think, "Wow, what a value! I should try to sell this." It's free stuff that they give away. I think promo cards are for people, like me, who think that alternative art is neat. I don't think that promo cards were created with the idea that they would be more valuable than other cards. The Exiled version of Gifts Ungiven is worth less than it's actual counterpart. I think real life MTG is proof of this, as well. The FNM card for last month was Sakura-Tribe Elder, a card that isn't even in standard, which, arguably, of course, is the most valuable format to WOTC since players need to buy new cards to play standard. The "value" of these cards is determined by the person that wants them. If MTGO wanted you to have something of "value" they would give you packs or more tickets. My advice would be to find someone who likes promos, like me, and give them away. :-)

I agree on the one hand that by Paul Leicht at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 15:33
Paul Leicht's picture

I agree on the one hand that it is nice to have alternate art for cards that you like to play. (But why bother with the cards you don't eh?) And I too do not play daily events so the fact that they are stopping handing out promos should upset me as the prices will rise. But really...if I own 4x of a card I like...does it REALLY matter if it has the promo stamp on it? In almost every case the original art is more valuable. (Which was not the case in the old days when promos were actually rare.) My opinion is that it does not matter unless I make it matter. I for one detest foils and prefer the plain unadorned cards at least online. On paper Foils actually look decent and can be quite attractive. Online they tend to be ugly and hard to look at. I prefer having my decks be easy on the eyes.

i dont care about value, i by ShardFenix at Thu, 01/07/2010 - 12:23
ShardFenix's picture

i dont care about value, i just look at promos as something special...large quantities is not special