State of the Program for October 5th 2018

By: one million words, Pete Jahn
Oct 05 2018 1:00pm

State of the Program for October 5th 2018

In the News

Guilds of Ravnica Here: Guilds of Ravnica will be playable on MTGO on the Thursday before the prerelease. This is one day earlier than previously. MTGO players will have an option of playing a normal 6 pack competitive sealed leagues, or playing a friendly league with 5 normal GoR packs, and one guild themed booster. Details here.

No Change to B&R List: Wizards announced no changes to the Banned and Restricted list for any format. Next B&R announcement will be.

Dominaria Redemptions Ends Wednesday: The last day to redeem Dominaria is next Wednesday. Core Set 2019 is, theoretically, still available for redemption, but currently out of stock.

GerryT Boycotts Worlds: Gerry Thompson was qualified for the Magic Worlds Championships, but elected not to play. He explained that he was protesting the lack of support for professional Magic and the pro players, along with problems with coverage and other factors of Wizards’ treatment of the Pro Tour. His statement is here. As you would expect, this caused a lot of controversy.

MTG Arena Goes into Open Beta: The program is now generally available. Wizards has promoted it heavily, including paying a lot of streamers to stream the game. The big push meant Arena made a big one-day showing on Twitch.tv, but viewership numbers have dropped again.

The Timeline

This is a list of things we have been promised, or we just want to see coming back. Another good source for dates and times is the calendar and the weekly blog, while the best source for known bugs is the bug blog which appears sporadically on MTGO.com. Not listed, but important: Wizards offers either one or two online PTQs each weekend, with qualifiers running the three days prior to the PTQ.

Upcoming Events	Dates
Scheduled Downtimes	October 24^th and December 5^th
Constructed Leagues End
Sealed Leagues End
Ravnica Allegiance	January 2019
Next B&R Announcement	November 26, 2018
Dominaria Redemption Ends	October 10, 2018
Core Set 2019 Redemption Ends	December 26, 2018

WotC Covered Events

Wizards will be streaming a number of events next year, including all four Pro Tours, the Magic Championship and World Magic Cup, along with 35 Grand Prix. Since Wizards does not schedule premier events on prerelease weekends and certain holidays, that means they will be streaming an event nearly every weekend. Here’s the schedule we have so far.

· Oct. 6–7: Grand Prix Montreal

· Oct. 13–14: Grand Prix Denver

· Oct. 27–28: Grand Prix Lille

· Nov. 3–4: Grand Prix Atlanta

· Nov. 9–11: Pro Tour Guilds of Ravnica in Atlanta

· Nov. 17–18: Grand Prix Milwaukee

· Dec. 8–9: Grand Prix Liverpool

· Dec. 14–16: World Magic Cup in Barcelona, Spain

2018 Magic Online Championship Series and other events

Complete details, including schedule, rules, and which online events qualify you for which online or paper events is here. In addition, Wizards will be offering these special formats:

· Guilds of Ravnica

Magic Online Format Challenges

These are high stakes events that happen every weekend. They cost 25 Tix / 250 play points, and last a number of rounds based on participation (assume 5-8), plus a single elimination Top 8. Details, including prize payouts, are here. Start times are:

Event Type	Start Time
Modern Challenge	Saturday, 8:00 am PT
Vintage Challenge	Saturday, 10:00 am PT
1v1 Commander	Saturday, 12:00 pm PT
Legacy Challenge	Sunday, 8:00 am PT
Pauper Challenge	Sunday, 10:00 am PT
1v1 Brawl	Sunday, noon PT

Opinion Section: Worlds

Worlds was two weeks ago. It did not go well. Players were unhappy going in, and the whole GerryT thing did not help. Gerry’s boycott, however, was a symptom, not a cause, f the problems.

Right now, Wizards is concentrating on Arena. It is a launch of a digital product, and one that Wizards has spent a lot of money. It is critically important, they believe, to the company’s future. The current company president was hired because of his knowledge about digital gaming.

It is also important because Wizards has a really bad history with digital releases. The initial release of MTGO, and each of the major upgrades, have been disasters. Wizards also introduced digital products like Gleemax, which was supposed to be “Facebook for Gamers.” That was a bust. Wizards has spent a bunch of money on their forums and interactive websites – and all of them were failures. And then there is the software that runs events: DCI Reporter, WER, WLTER, etc. Not good.

So I can see why Wizards is focusing all its resources on making sure MTG Arena breaks that mold. They want Arena to be Wizards first really successful digital product.

I get that.

But.

But they need to pay at least a little attention to their core business – the business that actually makes the money, but making the Magic. Paper Magic.

The Silver Showcase was a disaster, but I can understand that. The huge viewership of the first Beta Draft caught Wizards by surprise, and they scrambled to find ways to capitalize on that. Then group think took over, and they made bad decisions. Too little time, conflicting priorities and no chance to step back and really consider the result – I understand how this sort of bad decision happens. The root causes of such failures are often studied by psychologists, economists and military historians. We know why it happens – and how to prevent it. But sometimes people forget to prevent it.

The decisions surrounding Worlds are harder to understand. Worlds was not advertised. There was so little promotion that a significant number of Pro players didn’t know it was happening until GerryT’s protest hit the Twitterverse. Even two days before the event, I had to Google the event to find the info page on Wizards own website. That shouldn’t happen. A bunch of people have written some really good pieces on how Worlds should be promoted and covered. Wizards demonstrated how not to do it.

And then there were the formats. Worlds competitors were playing Dominaria drafts and pre-rotation Standard. The top four was four RB aggro decks playing for, fortunately, the last time ever. Now Dominaria was, arguably, a better choice that M19, but it is still a format pretty much no one will be playing after last weekend. Why not have the Pros play Guild of Ravnica. Yes, it had not been released, but Wizards got paper cards to the folks doing the Pre-Prerelease. They could certainly have gotten cards for Worlds. And yes, I know that players would not have had a chance to practice the format, but this is Worlds! The players are the 24 best in the world - they can figure it out.

Wizards, this was bad. Fix it for next time. Arena may be the cool new thing, but you still need paper Magic to be keep Wizards in the black and Hasbro happy. And that depends on competitive play, which depends on the Pro Tour. Arena cannot carry the whole thing.

On a lighter note, I found my copy of the initial, introductory issue of The Duelist, Wizards “Official Trading Card Magazine.” It looks like this:

The introductory issue is small – about 4 x 5 inches in size.

The last page helped you to “Learn the Lingo.” The terms defined in the “Lingo” article were:

· Booster

· CoP

· DCI

· Direct Damage

· Expansion

· Fizzle

· Hack

· Lucky Charms

· Mulligan

· PPG

· Sleight

· Stand-Alone

· Starter

· Tim

· WotC

If you know what these are, answer in the comments. “Booster” is obvious. And I’ll tell you one of the: PPG is defined as “shorthand for The Pocket Player’s Guide to Magic: the Gathering.” The PPG was a book. I have that, too.

And the definition of mulligan was the instruction for taking one. It did not say “Shuffle, then draw one less card.” That’s the “Paris Mulligan” which did not appear for several more years.

I’ll show the official answers, as written, next week.

Cutting Edge Tech

Standard: We have a brand new Standard. What we don’t have are any large events so far. We have MTGO Competitive league results, but all we know from those is that certain decks can, in the right circumstances, go 5-0. They’re fun to look at. Here’s what I would play, if I was playing a Standard event this weekend.

Mono-Green Beats

CHROLONY, 5-0, MTGO Competitive Standard League

2 Vivien Reid 4 Ghalta, Primal Hunger 4 Kraul Harpooner 4 Llanowar Elves 3 Nullhide Ferox 4 Pelt Collector 4 Steel Leaf Champion 4 Thorn Lieutenant 4 Thrashing Brontodon 3 Adventurous Impulse 15 Forest 4 Overgrown Tomb	4 Overgrown Tomb 1 Swamp 4 Woodland Cemetery	Sideboard: 1 Vivien Reid 4 Duress 2 Ripjaw Raptor 2 Sorcerous Spyglass 4 Vine Mare 2 Vraska, Relic Seeker

Modern: With a prerelease last weekend, we had fewer big Modern events, but fewer is not zero. Milano hosted a 168 player tournament.

UR Breech

David Peretti, Winner, Ovino13 Modern Main Event

1 See Beyond 1 Sweltering Suns 1 Dismember 1 Abrade 1 Electrolyze 2 Izzet Charm 3 Cryptic Command 4 Opt 4 Remand 4 Through the Breach 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Serum Visions 1 Vendilion Clique 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 4 Snapcaster Mage 1 Desolate Lighthouse 2 Mountain 1 Desolate Lighthouse	2 Misty Rainforest 3 Steam Vents 3 Sulfur Falls 4 Scalding Tarn 6 Island	Sideboard: 2 Surgical Extraction 2 Spell Pierce 2 Ceremonious Rejection 3 Young Pyromancer 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2 Sweltering Suns 1 Dismember 1 Abrade 1 Vendilion Clique 1 Vendilion Clique

Legacy: Milano also had a Legacy event last weekend. That event had 125 players competing.

Reliquary Loam

Alexander Beiersdorfer, Winner, Ovino13 Legacy Main Event

3 Abrupt Decay 1 Badlands 1 Barren Moor 2 Bayou 1 Cabal Pit 4 Chalice of the Void 4 Dark Confidant 1 Dryad Arbor 1 Forest 1 Gaddock Teeg 2 Green Sun's Zenith 3 Grove of the Burnwillows 1 Karakas 4 Knight of the Reliquary 2 Life from the Loam 3 Liliana of the Veil 1 Maze of Ith 4 Mox Diamond 3 Punishing Fire 1 Savannah 1 Scavenging Ooze	1 Scrubland 1 Sylvan Library 1 Taiga 1 Tranquil Thicket 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Vindicate 4 Wasteland 2 Windswept Heath 1 Queen Marchesa	Sideboard: 1 Nissa, Vital Force 1 Ajani Vengeant 2 Golgari Charm 3 Leyline of the Void 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 1 Reclamation Sage 2 Swords to Plowshares 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale 1 Choke

Card Prices

Note: all my prices come from the fine folks at MTGOTraders.com. These are retail prices, and generally the price of the lowest priced, actively traded version. (Prices for some rare promo versions are not updated when not in stock, so I skip those.) You can get these cards at MTGOTraders.com web store, or from their bots: MTGOTradersBot(#) (they have bots 1-10), CardCaddy and CardWareHouse, or sell cards to MTGOTradersBuyBot(#) (they have buybots 1-4). I have bought cards from MTGOTraders for over a decade now, and have never been overcharged or disappointed.

Standard Staples: Standard prices are mixed as the new metagame develops. The Guilds cards are all new – I would expect significant changes over the next couple weeks.

Standard Cards	Price	Last Week	Change	% Change
Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants	$9.05	$7.22	$1.83	25%
Assassin's Trophy	$12.25	new	n/a	n/a
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice	$8.59	new	n/a	n/a
Carnage Tyrant	$11.09	$10.01	$1.08	11%
Doom Whisperer	$16.99	new	n/a	n/a
History of Benalia	$16.83	$11.36	$5.47	48%
Karn, Scion of Urza	$17.84	$24.47	($6.63)	-27%
Lyra Dawnbringer	$11.63	$7.89	$3.74	47%
Nexus of Fate	$12.05	$13.25	($1.20)	-9%
Nicol Bolas, the Ravager	$13.56	$12.90	$0.66	5%
Rekindling Phoenix	$26.97	$25.54	$1.43	6%
Search for Azcanta	$6.13	$7.56	($1.43)	-19%
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria	$33.70	$34.51	($0.81)	-2%
Vivien Reid	$9.79	$6.96	$2.83	41%
Vraska's Contempt	$6.01	$5.89	$0.12	2%

Modern staples: Modern prices fell heavily this week. Generally, prices for eternal formats fall at rotation, as people sell eternal cards to pay for release events, drafts, and new cards. This drop, however, is a lot larger than in the past.

Modern Cards	Price	Last Week	Change	% Change
Aether Vial	$16.15	$20.11	($3.96)	-20%
Blood Moon	$11.53	$13.68	($2.15)	-16%
Cavern of Souls	$18.24	$25.16	($6.92)	-28%
Celestial Colonnade	$16.45	$24.04	($7.59)	-32%
Chalice of the Void	$13.99	$18.22	($4.23)	-23%
Collected Company	$13.50	$19.24	($5.74)	-30%
Collective Brutality	$14.40	$18.34	($3.94)	-21%
Engineered Explosives	$26.71	$34.95	($8.24)	-24%
Ensnaring Bridge	$29.75	$29.18	$0.57	2%
Horizon Canopy	$38.08	$57.96	($19.88)	-34%
Jace, the Mind Sculptor	$66.10	$74.27	($8.17)	-11%
Karn Liberated	$20.23	$26.27	($6.04)	-23%
Kolaghan's Command	$12.81	$16.38	($3.57)	-22%
Leyline of the Void	$13.55	$15.42	($1.87)	-12%
Liliana of the Veil	$34.03	$46.94	($12.91)	-28%
Liliana, the Last Hope	$41.80	$48.14	($6.34)	-13%
Mox Opal	$41.53	$56.07	($14.54)	-26%
Noble Hierarch	$21.56	$29.40	($7.84)	-27%
Scalding Tarn	$19.18	$25.03	($5.85)	-23%
Surgical Extraction	$34.53	$43.70	($9.17)	-21%
Tarmogoyf	$21.80	$28.38	($6.58)	-23%
Vendilion Clique	$17.23	$19.26	($2.03)	-11%

Legacy and Vintage: Back to Basics continues to climb. Everything else, however, is sliding.

Legacy / Vintage Cards	Price	Last Week	Change	% Change
Back to Basics	$42.91	$35.59	$7.32	21%
Black Lotus	$24.77	$27.98	($3.21)	-11%
City of Traitors	$23.06	$25.86	($2.80)	-11%
Daze	$13.78	$17.21	($3.43)	-20%
Exploration	$16.31	$18.21	($1.90)	-10%
Force of Will	$26.54	$31.42	($4.88)	-16%
Misdirection	$28.56	$29.89	($1.33)	-4%
Show and Tell	$16.29	$16.00	$0.29	2%
True-Name Nemesis	$56.52	$56.01	$0.51	1%
Underground Sea	$9.52	$13.59	($4.07)	-30%
Unmask	$20.20	$23.38	($3.18)	-14%
Wasteland	$19.12	$20.61	($1.49)	-7%

Standard Legal Sets: This table tracks the cost of a single copy of every card in each Standard legal set, plus Treasure Chests and the current booster pack. I’ll keep tracking these because they are interesting (at least to me).

Complete Set	Price	Last Week	Change	% Change
Core Set 2019	$135.73	$131.65	$4.08	3%
Dominaria	$121.96	$120.72	$1.24	1%
Guilds of Ravnica	$116.81	(new)	n/a	n/a
Ixalan	$75.22	$76.32	($1.10)	-1%
Rivals of Ixalan	$82.59	$83.92	($1.33)	-2%
Treasure Chest	$2.57	$2.34	$0.23	10%
Guilds of Ravnica Booster	$2.93	$2.93	$0.00	0%

The Good Stuff

The following is a list of all the non-promo, non-foil cards on MTGO that retail for more than $25 per card. These are the big ticket items in the world of MTGO. The list is pretty stable again this week. And a Black Lotus is way over $100, with Mox Sapphire a step behind. The table has shrunk, however – just a bit over 50 cards this week.

Name	Set	Rarity	Price
Black Lotus	1E	Rare	$ 137.05
Mox Sapphire	1E	Rare	$ 83.36
Jace, the Mind Sculptor	VMA	Mythic Rare	$ 71.83
Jace, the Mind Sculptor	A25	Mythic Rare	$ 69.13
Horizon Canopy	IMA	Rare	$ 68.99
Jace, the Mind Sculptor	EMA	Mythic Rare	$ 66.28
Jace, the Mind Sculptor	WWK	Mythic Rare	$ 66.10
Horizon Canopy	EXP	Mythic Rare	$ 64.09
Force of Will	MED	Rare	$ 59.63
True-Name Nemesis	C13	Rare	$ 59.34
Mox Emerald	1E	Rare	$ 57.00
Ancestral Recall	1E	Rare	$ 57.00
True-Name Nemesis	PZ1	Mythic Rare	$ 56.52
Mox Ruby	1E	Rare	$ 56.51
Mox Jet	1E	Rare	$ 53.00
Mox Opal	MM2	Mythic Rare	$ 52.20
Liliana of the Veil	MM3	Mythic Rare	$ 45.99
Mox Opal	SOM	Mythic Rare	$ 44.02
Back to Basics	UZ	Rare	$ 42.91
Liliana, the Last Hope	EMN	Mythic Rare	$ 41.80
Mox Opal	MS2	Bonus	$ 41.53
Time Walk	1E	Rare	$ 41.00
City of Traitors	EX	Rare	$ 39.47
Horizon Canopy	FUT	Rare	$ 38.08
Unmask	V16	Mythic Rare	$ 37.92
Mox Pearl	1E	Rare	$ 36.81
Surgical Extraction	NPH	Rare	$ 35.14
Dark Depths	V16	Mythic Rare	$ 34.68
Surgical Extraction	MM2	Rare	$ 34.53
Liliana of the Veil	ISD	Mythic Rare	$ 34.03
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria	DAR	Mythic Rare	$ 33.70
Engineered Explosives	MMA	Rare	$ 31.02
Ensnaring Bridge	8ED	Rare	$ 30.74
Ensnaring Bridge	7E	Rare	$ 30.22
Ensnaring Bridge	A25	Mythic Rare	$ 30.17
Wasteland	TE	Uncommon	$ 30.03
Ensnaring Bridge	ST	Rare	$ 30.02
Force of Will	MS3	Special	$ 29.89
Tarmogoyf	MMA	Mythic Rare	$ 29.84
Ensnaring Bridge	MS2	Bonus	$ 29.75
Engineered Explosives	5DN	Rare	$ 29.71
Scalding Tarn	EXP	Mythic Rare	$ 28.80
Misdirection	MM	Rare	$ 28.56
Force of Will	EMA	Mythic Rare	$ 28.13
Cavern of Souls	MM3	Mythic Rare	$ 27.68
Wasteland	TPR	Rare	$ 27.30
Rekindling Phoenix	RIX	Mythic Rare	$ 26.97
Engineered Explosives	MS2	Bonus	$ 26.71
Force of Will	VMA	Rare	$ 26.54
Mox Diamond	ST	Rare	$ 25.67
Mox Diamond	TPR	Mythic Rare	$ 25.60
Wasteland	EXP	Mythic Rare	$ 25.02

The big number is the retail price of a playset (4 copies) of every card available on MTGO. Assuming you bought the least expensive versions available, the cost of owning a playset of every card on MTGO is approximately $ 16,845. That’s down about $1,590 from two weeks ago. That a big drop – larger than usual after a new set appears.

In Closing

I ran a couple Prereleases last weekend, and will be running another sealed event this week. Set looks pretty good. The sealed event, this evening as this posts, will have 40-50 players. I may be able to play and judge – although I will almost certainly have to drop before the last round. I‘m judging and scorekeeping and, in the last round, handling out prizes. I cannot do that and play. In earlier rounds, I can. When playing, I tell my opponent I may have to take judge calls, and if we to go to time as a result, I’ll just concede. My opponent shouldn’t be disadvantaged, by my having other responsibilities. Also, I only join if we have an odd number of players, so no one has to wait out a bye.

In Dominaria, we had an odd number of players, so I jumped in. I had a great pool – one that would have been a blast to play. Then, halfway through deck construction, another player arrived. Just one – so I couldn’t play. Bummer. Hopefully that won’t happen again.

PRJ

“One Million Words” on MTGO

This series is an ongoing tribute to Erik “Hamtastic” Friborg.

10 Comments

Lucky Charms by Rerepete at Fri, 10/05/2018 - 14:39

IIRC, they are Ivory Cup, Crystal Rod, Throne of Bone, Iron Star and Wooden Sphere.

Hack is Magical Hack, Sleight is Sleight of Mind.

I'm pretty sure that Duelist by Misterpid at Fri, 10/05/2018 - 19:07

I'm pretty sure that Duelist is from the Rivals Quick Start Set that was released around the same time Alliances came out.

Stand-Alone is an expansion set that can be played using only cards from that expansion. You don't need to mix it with cards from the base set or other expansions. At the time, Ice Age was the only Stand-Alone. It's basically what they called the first set of a block before they came up with the concept of blocks.

· CoP - Circle of by TheWolf at Sat, 10/06/2018 - 21:52

· CoP - Circle of Protection
· DCI - Duellists Convocation International
· Direct Damage - burn spell
· Expansion - Anything that was a set without basic lands included
· Fizzle - when the target of a spell is removed, the spell 'fizzled' (had no effect)
· Hack - magical hack
· Lucky Charms - artifacts that gave 1 life when you cast a spell of one of the five colours
· Sleight - sleight of hand
· Stand-Alone - I *think* this referred to sets that had basic lands; so Ice Age, Mirage etc
· Starter - 60 card box of random cards including basic lands and a rulebook
· Tim - Prodigal Sorcerer
· WotC - Wizards of the coast

Arena by JMason at Sun, 10/07/2018 - 17:14

I joined words with friends so that I could play the game. It all started to go wrong when wwf2 arrived and the app became all about quests and power-ups. Particularly frustrating are the in-game distractions which detract from thinking and the inescapable prize box openings.

See where I'm going with this?

Arena starts out with all the worst elements of the candy-crush generation of apps. I found within two days I was starting to get addicted to daily challenges but hating the experience.

Personally I have done with Arena now, but I wonder if the hit on the 'big number' is a sign of worse to come.

re by Hearts at Sun, 10/07/2018 - 18:32

JMason: What is "wwf2" ?

wwf2 is words with friends 2, by JMason at Mon, 10/08/2018 - 13:58

wwf2 is words with friends 2, the version of the app that introduces the in-game distractions and the daily/weekly quests.

Regarding Arena, I'm sure it's appealing to many people who like the daily challenges and who want a bunch of video-game elements in the UI... but what I want is different, just the intellectual part of the game.

re by Hearts at Sun, 10/07/2018 - 22:44

"And then there is the software that runs events: DCI Reporter, WER, WLTER, etc. Not good."

Is one of the things wrong with this that players with same last names (or very similar) have been paired in round 1 of local shop events(fnm and you name it) more than usual ? I think it is. And it has been so for almost 20 years.

Interestingly, whenever I by TheWolf at Sun, 10/07/2018 - 23:18

Interestingly, whenever I tend to play in the same store as a friend of mine, we would often get paired against each other round 1. This was happening frequently enough (and in different locations) that we started to become suspicious

They must use the same by Rerepete at Mon, 10/08/2018 - 18:50

They must use the same randomizer as MODO

On my way out by IYankemDDS at Tue, 10/09/2018 - 22:58

I am currently drafting away my remaining tickets on MTGO. I think they will last through Guilds of Ravnica. I will also probably redeem Core Set (when it is back in stock) and Guilds. The things that MTGO will do that Arena does not are not things that appeal to me..