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By: hamtastic, Erik Friborg
Apr 03 2009 10:12am
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Editorial Section:
For those who are new to my writing, I tend to write a lot about the various aspects of MTGO and sometimes even Magic in general.  One of my favorite 'non-State' works is "
Mark Rosewater and the Quest to Impale Spike".  It was written almost one year ago now and was a lot of work to research.  I remember the time I took building it quite well, as it was about two days of solid digging, cross checking, and putting things into context.  At the time I wrote it, many bad changes had been happening to both Paper and Online Magic.  Namely that the high end players were getting sacrificed to feed the lower players.  This article flitted into my brain as I was getting ready to write this week's article as an interesting checkpoint to compare our current situation.  Where are we now, and how far have we come since then?  I'll mainly be focusing on the MTGO improvements and changes, as that's the most pertinent to us.  However I'll make sure to mention a couple of Paper changes as well.

MTGO Issue #1: Removal of Intentional Draws
This one still exists and is still mentioned in passing from time to time even now.  According to WotC it will not be allowed ever on MTGO due to the fact that if they could prevent them in paper, they would.  However, as there's no way to accurately prevent them in paper Magic they will continue to exist there as well.  Don't look for this to be changed any time soon.  So we're sadly in the same situation now as we were then.

MTGO Issue #2: Flattened prize structures
This was the major reason for even revisting this topic.  From this time last year we've had announcements for the Classic Player of the Year Race, then the Magic Online Championship Series and now the Magic Online Player of the Year program.  I feel it's safe to say that WotC, at least for MTGO, has actually gotten better for the high calibre tournament players than it was before.  They've also brought back the release event championship events that have really big payouts for the top players.  They've done all this while also giving players low-end competition opportunities as well.  I think that this double effort has had a tremendous impact to the tournament scene on MTGO.  In fact, it's this very scheme that got yours truly into playing competitive constructed Magic for the first time ever.  Up until now I've dabbled in sealed and played a lot of Casual Magic.  But now, thanks to easy ways of testing (2 man queues) and a qualifier setup that I can work into my evenings (8 man queues) I can at least *try* to qualify for some of these larger events.  And so far, I'm loving it.  (Look for a new article series that chronicles my endeavors into the world of competitive Magic soon). 

Resolved Paper Issue: States/Champs.
This one was resolved some time after the article went up, and I figure I should mention it here.  As can be seen in the following link (
link), States/Champs were brought back.  A very good thing for the paper playing crowd.  And we all know that they can use all the good news that they can get. 

The Point:
And now I come to the point of the Editorial Section where I finally get to the main point that started this all.  And that point is that if you're in to competitive Magic, no matter what the flavor, MTGO is a great place for you to be right now.  You have fast events in the 2 Man Queues, you have medium events in the 8 Man Queues.  You have Premier events running around the clock, large Daily events happening, well, daily and gigantic weekend events.  You have promo cards for playing in the larger queues, you have large qualification only events for the leaders of their respective fields and perks for those who dedicate the time and money to playing on MTGO a lot.  It's having a very noticeable impact a few very important things.  The first is the demand for cards.  We saw, without a doubt, the fastest post-release card stabilization I've ever seen on MTGO thanks to increased demand for Standard and Block playable singles.  We've seen a healthy increase in tournament players logging into MTGO as well.  These are very, very good things for anyone who enjoys, or even kind of likes, MTGO.  It means your cards are more valuable from the drafts you open, which is a good thing for the drafts and sealed players.

I've been spending quite a bit of time on the MTGSalvation forums as they have some of the best Alara Block constructed discussions I've been able to find so far.  I've been amazed at how many people there are using MTGO for Block Constructed playing.  There are even some players who have been top 8'ing consistently on MTGO weighing in and talking about the format.  As it doesn't really have a lot of paper support this year (one PT uses it for half of the event and there are no qualifiers that use it) MTGO has pretty much become *the* place to get your Alara Block Constructed groove on.  Soon to follow this trend is Kaleidoscope, the Online only format that's provided quite a bit of discussion on the MTGO boards already.

Discussion Items:
Even though there was a lot of talking done on the forums this week, it was largely based around the Customer Appreciation Week (hereafter referred to as CAW) events and decisions and well... the troubles surrounding them.

CAW CAW CAW! -
If you missed the insanity that was the Customer Appreciation Week events, consider yourself lucky.  I'll summarize: 
WotC: "d;lfkj safjsadklfj kl;afjsda;fj;aklfj sl;akfj alsk;j f"
Players: "as;dklfj;aslkfjsadk fjskl;adfj as;lk fjj CAW CAW CAWsl;dfjksl;adkfjsafjsdaf"
WotC: "alk;dfjasdj flk;ja fkl;adfj l;akjfdas; klajf al;kjfakl; j;asdj fk NO a;lsdaj ladksfj a;sdjfsa"
Players: "asd;lfjlsadk fj;alksdfjl;ska fja;sdkljf ;alksdfj ;alk jf CAW CAW CAW sdlakfj ;s kla fjasdl;fkj sdakfj"

Magic Online Player of the Year Races -
This is a supplement to the currently running ClassicQuarter player of the year race and has a lot of moving components but I'll summarize them:
"The players that earn the most QP points in the following categories will be named the 2009 Magic Online Champion for that format. The categories that will be tracked and awarded are:

* Standard Constructed play
* Block Constructed play*
* Extended Constructed play
* Classic Constructed play
* Sealed play*
* Draft play*

In addition to the title, the Magic Online Format Champions of the Year will pre-qualify for their choice of one of the Season Championships in the 2010 Magic Online Championship Series."

Card Price Graphs:





Card Price Charts:

 

Card name: Last Week This week Percentage Changed
Primalcrux 1 1.5 50.00%
Boggart Ram-Gang 0.5 0.75 50.00%
Enchanted Evening 0.2 0.3 50.00%
Wasteland 9 13 44.44%
Ancient Amphitheater 0.35 0.5 42.86%
Oracle of Nectars 0.25 0.35 40.00%
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner 0.9 1.25 38.89%
Persecute 0.4 0.55 37.50%
Spark Elemental 0.15 0.2 33.33%
Elvish Champion 1.15 1.5 30.43%




Card name: Last Week This week Amount Changed
Wasteland 9 13 4
Wilt-Leaf Liege 7.5 9.5 2
Doran, the Siege Tower 8.5 9.75 1.25
Bloom Tender 3.5 4.5 1
Primalcrux 1 1.5 0.5
Glorious Anthem 3 3.5 0.5
Glorious Anthem 3 3.5 0.5
Glorious Anthem 3 3.5 0.5
Humility 3 3.5 0.5
Glorious Anthem 3.25 3.75 0.5




Card name: Last Week This week Percentage Changed
Worldheart Phoenix 0.4 0.3 -25.00%
Paleoloth 0.2 0.15 -25.00%
Mass Calcify 0.15 0.12 -20.00%
Plague of Vermin 0.15 0.12 -20.00%
Knollspine Invocation 0.15 0.12 -20.00%
Din of the Fireherd 0.15 0.12 -20.00%
Tyrannize 0.15 0.12 -20.00%
Shambling Remains 0.5 0.4 -20.00%
Cylian Sunsinger 0.25 0.2 -20.00%
Blood Tyrant 0.25 0.2 -20.00%




Card name: Last Week This week Amount Changed
Stifle 15 13.75 -1.25
Collective Restraint 9.9 8.82 -1.08
Necropotence 8 7 -1
Pillar of the Paruns 8 7 -1
Glimpse of Nature 6 5.5 -0.5
Demigod of Revenge 6.5 6 -0.5
Fulminator Mage 3.6 3.25 -0.35
Chord of Calling 2.5 2.25 -0.25
Wooded Bastion 2.5 2.25 -0.25
Plains 3 2.75 -0.25

Card Price Discussions:

We had yet another week of increasing card prices.  It seems to be the norm now, instead of a special event and I can't even write how happy that fact makes me.  Demand is steadily growing for more cards than are declining which certainly helps anyone who is looking to draft or sell old cards.  I'll once again recommend to anyone interested that Tempest cards have been continuing to gain in price (even though I didn't chart any this week) and that a good time to nab some expensive uncommons, commons and rares will be during the upcoming Stronghold release events.  Wasteland alone will net you almost another draft.  And it's an uncommon.  Nab a decent rare or two and or a Muscle Sliver and you'll have enough in ticket sales to draft some more! 

Some Extended cards are still dropping, which is completely reasonable given the change of PTQ seasons in Paper Magic.  Standard and Block cards are rising though, which has done enough to offset the losses in Extended pretty easily.  It's nice to see Persecute move up a little bit.  That's always been one of my favorite cards and it gets especially destructive with so many multicolor cards flying around, it makes the amount of missed cards decrease quite a bit.

Magic Online Championship Series:

This section is new, and is something I'm not sure about how it will all work out yet.  I intend to have a place where I'm able to look at the Championship data that's available as well as gather stories, experiences and tips for the players who are playing in them or are looking to play in them.  I'm open to hints, suggestions, feedback for this section, so please let me know what you'd like to see here!

Conclusion:
Another really good week for MTGO constructed and even sealed players.  I hope that if any of you are on the fence about trying your hand at a constructed format that you give the 2 player queues a spin.  They're great fun, they make you focus on your play more that the Tournament Practice room does and you can win a pack!  All for just two tickets.  I had never played them (even for pauper) until I recently started to get into Block Constructed and I have been amazed at how fun they have been.  Until next week! 

~Hamcrest out.

26 Comments

Great Article! by Deckwizard (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 10:31
Deckwizard's picture
5

I look forward to every Friday when I get to read your report. Yet again, another interesting and informative overview. You provide a great service to the MTGO community, and for that I salute you.

Why has Primalcrux has increased in price? Is their a new standard MGA deck, or is it being added to elves decks?

Also, it's interesting to see Wasteland rise so much. Uncommons are plentiful. This leads me to believe that hoarding has yet again played a role in the MTGO economy. How many users must there be with 100+ wastelands for the price of an uncommon to reach such lofty prices?

Your weekly articles are "my by Anonymous (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 10:55
Anonymous's picture
5

Your weekly articles are "my favorite thing to read" about MTGO.

whatelse ? by LOurs at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:10
LOurs's picture
5

a so useful article, as usual

about the CAW invasion : for sure, many players abused of it, but honestly the concept was not so easy to understand if you were not a natural english speaker ...

Very true! by hamtastic at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:20
hamtastic's picture

I think that it was just a bad idea all around, which they appear to have realized now. I can understand what they were trying for but it was really not going to work no matter how they tried to set it up within the current client. :(

I can only hope that they get better structures in place to make things like this possible in the future.

i concur CAW was f'ed by Anonymous (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:34
Anonymous's picture

sure it was nice in theory to give back for all the lag and jank wotc mtgo had for us in march, but to give us a CAW event with just as many issues, whats that say, thanks for giving us money, heres a ulcer in responce?

i like your article thou

Thanks! by hamtastic at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:21
hamtastic's picture
5

Thank you all very much for the feedback! It's always nice to see one's work appreciated.

Is there anything that you would like to see added/removed/changed from the articles? I will try to do pretty much anything that's suggested if it's within my power to do so. :)

yes i do ! it could be a good by LOurs at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:30
LOurs's picture

yes i do !

it could be a good idea to integrate a kinda "Card of the week" in your article : highlight on a specific card for any reason you could choose (hype, price evolution ....) :)

Good suggestion! by hamtastic at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:51
hamtastic's picture

I will certainly try to do this when I can. Some things are just as bizarre to me as they are to you all. Like Primalcrux. My guess is that it's some tech from an extended deck that's doing well but I'm just guessing on that. :)

I'll work on adding more details about the card price movements. Thanks for the suggestion!

wasteland by whiffy at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:37
whiffy's picture

wasteland is not at an unreasonable level yet. Take for example that it is a 10-15 dollar card in paper which some people seem to think should be roughly the equivlent of modo prices.
On top of this wasteland is by far the best card in tempest unc or no.
Not as much drafting as could be hoped for leads this tourny staple to probably be the most expensive card in modo.( its an imprint unc for a "niche" format and it is currently selling at a higer price then almost every std staple rare.)
look at witness for a real world example. it was a power uncm and even through out its life in print it fluxuated between 5-7 tix which is ussaly the price of a rare not a power uncom.
other recent power uncs include
finks
firespout
procession
and so on and so forth non of which hit the 5 tix mark. so just learn to live with it because this card will most likly stabilise around 10 tix

Odd by Anonymous (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:49
Anonymous's picture
4

Apparently the people babbling about CAW were confined to the home row.

yep by hamtastic at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:53
hamtastic's picture

Although, both WotC and the Players were guilty of attempted Gibberish with the CAW events. The players were not the only ones responsible for the insanity that occurred. Which is why I used the "gibberish" for both WotC and the Players.

It was not a good situation for either side of the CAW.

Erik, thanks for another by Anonymous (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:53
Anonymous's picture

Erik, thanks for another excellent article. You make Fridays my favorite day around the site.

Free event this weekend by IvoMV (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 12:09
IvoMV's picture

I'd like to remind everyone (again) that there is a cool PRE this weekend. Hamtastic mentioned this in last week's SotP but I think it is worth repeating.

It has rather decent prize support and is free to enter. In principle everyone that shows up will be able to join, so if you didn't get to play constructed in the CAW events, maybe you will like to try this!

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=18246409#post18246409

Ivo.

I missed a lot of CAW. Can by tumultuous (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 13:01
tumultuous's picture

I missed a lot of CAW. Can someone explain to me what happened exactly that was so messed up?

CAW CAW CAW CAW by hamtastic at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 13:12
hamtastic's picture

Essentially what was happening was this:

V3 was not really able to handle 1000 players trying to join a 256 player event at the same time. Also, some players were able to join multiple events while others never got into one.

To 'help' with this WotC_MattT tried something different. The first 256 players in the Room to type 'CAW' at the specified time would be entered manually. The theory was they could keep people from crashing their clients and also double check the people entering to keep them from playing in the even if they already were in the previous ones.

The problem arose that the room wasn't muted before the specified time so it was a flood of:
CAW
CAW
CAW
CAW
CAW
CAW
CAW
CAW

until he muted the room and explained it wasn't time yet. He unmuted the room and caw flood ensued.

Then he just gave up and set up the last two like normal.

These events were not able to be joined by everyone that wanted to join, and therefore, have left some of those who didn't get in very upset (some are slightly upset, some aren't upset... it varies).

one million words's picture
5

Is the last card in dropping prices an late 4/1 joke? Or am I missing something?

For the Player of the Year / Season Champs section, it would be great to see how many people have qualified for each season champs, and the top ten players in the PotY race. Getting that data might be tough, unless Wizards can release it. Maybe MatT will share...

Good article, as always.

Promo Plains by hamtastic at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 13:14
hamtastic's picture

The list shows the promo cards, of which, evidently the promo plains had a bad week. :(

I'm thinking this has to do with more promo cards being available to add that 'special' feeling to a deck and now the promo lands aren't as in demand as they once were.

Or people just don't like the promo plains for some reason.

Good ideas for the PotY races, I'll see what I can do for those. (Why oh why did they name it that...)

tickets by mtgotraders at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 14:02
mtgotraders's picture
5
You should write about how the ticket price is going to affect the market and is it ok for WOTC to control the ticket price like they are.
tickets, tickets, tickets by hamtastic at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 16:16
hamtastic's picture

... where are all the tickets....

This is something I think we saw coming about three weeks ago with the pauper queues having consumed a lot of tickets and then the announcement of the ticket only queues as well as increased constructed queue (which eats 6 tickets per player).

I think we've seen a lot more tickets being eaten than being purchased for about a month or so which and that is now catching up with the ticket prices.

It's getting to the point where one almost could buy them from the store and not feel bad about it.

Which is crazy.

A $1 tix being worth 85 cents by Anonymous (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 18:35
Anonymous's picture

A $1 tix being worth 85 cents is not crazy? Now you live in the USA and can buy tix @ $1 from the store, but I live in the UK, and I would be crazy to buy tix @ $1.15 or whatever the rate with tax is atm. Thank Murphy for Ebay.

Champs by Anonymous (not verified) at Fri, 04/03/2009 - 14:40
Anonymous's picture

While technically Champs did come back, it wasn't organized by WotC, but (iirc) by Glen Goddard, a PTO. Which means unless he decides to pick it up again next year, we may not have Champs again. I think it was successful as far as he and the other PTOs were concerned, so we should see it run by someone, but I don't think WotC has actually said "Our bad, Champs is back to stay"

Interesting by hamtastic at Tue, 04/07/2009 - 15:39
hamtastic's picture

I was unaware of that fact. Thank you for that information!

Thanks by Blade at Sat, 04/04/2009 - 18:38
Blade's picture

We could need a Terminate curve for next week. ;)

quote: Why has Primalcrux has by Anonymous (not verified) at Mon, 04/06/2009 - 06:52
Anonymous's picture

quote:
Why has Primalcrux has increased in price? Is their a new standard MGA deck, or is it being added to elves decks?

answer:
http://www.magic-league.com/deck/50819/standard_t2.html#All-In%20Green55247

Nice by MountainProud (not verified) at Mon, 04/06/2009 - 11:30
MountainProud's picture
4

Still a nice read hammy. How far back does the archive go?

I just checked... by hamtastic at Tue, 04/07/2009 - 15:39
hamtastic's picture

And it looks like the end of 2007. Wow. That's insane how long I've been doing these between the boards and then PureMTGO. It's also rather amazing that I've been writing long enough to become self-referential. That's pretty crazy.

One of these days I'm going to implement a historical "this week in MTGO" where I look at the same week a year or two previous. That should be interesting. :D