wouldnt a more elegant system be to just do away with boosters all together in MTGO? make all the drafts payout in the same value of tickets. make all drafts require the same value in tickets.(ie 14 tix) and allow you at any time to pay 4 tickets to open a random "pack" directly from the store if you suddenly desired just 15 random cards?
sounds a lot less technical than your UB that sometimes works and sometimes doesnt(release events) and much less confusing. encourages players to PLAY or spend out lots of tix at the end of the sale of a set and not to horde on boosters forever. reduces(more like totally eliminates) time players spend screwing around with sells to/from bots and increases the time spent playing/spending $$ on drafts.
i think this would be a much more elegant solution than paying out in boosters at all. honestly trying to manage how many of this pack + that pack for like 10 sets is really REALLY annoying, and even though i think your solution is creative i think there are easier fixes for the whole thing.
Paul - you make a very valid point. My motive for suggesting this is that is often too much choice and it fragments the players. I must also point out they would be aware of this shortcoming before entering the queue.
All I want is for:
1) there to be classic drafts launching often (which is not the case).
2) to a have one booster type so that i don't keep getting stuck with product I can't use (i.e. wasting money).
This is a case where democracy in action would suck for those in the minority (oh wait that's every case.) I could see this approach among friends where if someone was really unhappy with the choice the group would accept that as a veto and choose again. That wouldn't happen online. (Particularly since it would be automated.) I know if I particularly disliked a cycle I wouldn't want to be forced into drafting it just because 3 people wanted it and no one else voted together.
What I would like to see is that there are only two draft queues. The current format (ZEN) and then a classic draft queue. You enter the classic queue with universal boosters and when there are 8 players the players get to vote for a format. That format is then played. It would be exciting in that you could possibly play any draft format.
(obviously there would have to be a system to resolve ties in the vote system).
I don't like lacerators in the main deck because they soon get outclassed by better creatures in the mirror, which is usually a war of attrition. Topdecking Lacerators in the middle-game is like drawing blank against Vamps. Middlemen35 is right, Feast maindeck is needed to fight Vampires and, after-boarding, it gets replaced by Hideus End. With only two feasts I can usually cast it without problems.
Block is a lot of Vamps, UW.... Valakut doesn't exist near as much as it used to. Lots of rogue decks are viable, but most are aggressive or very niche decks like Summoningtrap-iona, which essentially runs the Valakut shell of Harrow + Khalni Heart. I'd say, for having 5-6 "viable" decks out there, I think that is perfect for a 1 set block so far.
I agree with everything you said about what's wrong with the current system.
Regardless of whether or not WotC would want to do this, the main problem with a UB is that I don't think it's possible for WotC to implement it.
The existence of simultaneous Nix-pax and Nix-tix queues for TSE tells me that WotC can't do more than 1 kind of entry fee for the same queue.
WotC CAN take one set of packs as an entry fee and award a different kind of pack as prizes. (see current ACR drafts for an example). This means that they could phase out old packs if they wanted to. However I don't believe substituting packs in a entry fee is possible with the current version of Magic Online.
I still say that the best solution for all sides is to phase out the old packs and change classic draft entry fees AND prizes to the current core set.
Feast is indeed awkward, many choices in single set block often are. However, it is absolutely necessary to combat the Vampire mirror (which is common enough that maindecking Feast over Hideous End is correct). Notice how vs almost any non-black deck the Hideous Ends come in for Feasts. Essentially the mirror comes down to Nighthawk advantage, and Feast of Blood is the only spell that kills Nighthawk.
They might not have Nocturnus but they are far more dominant in Block than they have been in Standard. In Zendikar they are the Tier 1 aggro deck, where as in standard they are a tier 2ish aggro afterthought.
yeah i have 20 exodus packs because of the release sealed events which payed out in only E. I think that wizards could do a better job without making a generic booster. It would make events easier to enter but it does seem a little boring and I thought real life and online magic were supposed to mirror each other. I'd be happy if they
1. pay out tse for a tse event, not just exodus.
2. In a 2 man Q or 4/3/2/2 draft pay out the appropriate block but make it random. Instead of paying out reborn for example in a 2 man pay out A, C, or R with equal probability. 1st place of a 4322 would get 1 set + a random booster.
You would think this would be even easier to implement and it still requires people to finish sets or trade for packs. Now if only trading wasn't so awful.....
I was wondering on your decision to sideboard the lacerators... they are extremely powerful and your deck was pretty low on creatures to mainboard feast of blood. I play T2 Standard Vamps and play 26 creatures and still sometimes struggle to have 2 vamps out for Feast.
Just my opinion though.
Also, without M10 for Nocturnus, Vampires are definately not as strong. (Though once Worldwake and the such come out, I can see something good joining the party :P)
I have to admit this is probably one of the best ideas i have heard in a while. The ability of always having pack X would definitely be a boon to the drafting environment. Especially when it comes to sets like TPF where most players have TP_... UB's would certainly help situations like this or with the unbalance of TSE packs.
My understanding from previous discussions of this idea on PureMTGO is that Wizards has thought of this before and has a reason for not implementing it, but hasn’t said so publically. I doubt they’d be willing to implement a UB that could sub for a set that’s still in print, but I see no reason why a “Classic Pack” as proposed by Marcus Rehnberg wouldn’t work. Nix Pax drafts are a poor substitute: with classic packs in your collection, you’ll draft them, but with a bunch of tix you’ll just spend them on cards.
I'm pretty sure that the author is not advocating the combination of multiple sets into a single booster pack (like wotc is doing with alara block), but rather creating a booster pack "placeholder" which can be used to enter into a draft of any set (as opposed to requiring you to have a particular set of packs to enter a draft). 3 Universal boosters could be used to enter any draft format: TSE, ZZZ, MVW, etc..and you could also, for instance, enter a TSE draft with a tempest booster, exodus booster and universal booster that counts as the stronghold pack. Your comment deals with a separate issue that wotc is experimenting with, as universal boosters would not change any draft format from the paper version. UBs arereally a terrific idea and it's either a suprise wotc has thought of them yet or a shame that the idea was considered and just not yet implemented.
a few thoughts on the issue and why I believe that those combined boosters are NOT a good thing for competitive players.
The main reason many players are using MTGO is to practice their draft skills with new and older sets. For now Wizard is using the combined booster idea for an older set to test the water and not the current block but I still feel little value drafting it because it does not match the paper format. You will never have ACR mixed boosters in real life and it's safe to assume that the drafting experience differs significantly enough to make it a less useful tool for practicing paper drafts.
While I agree that the current system has flaws I would rather see the proposed solution of "Universal Boosters" you can simply use to enter any draft. I don't see the value in changing the composition of the boosters themselves and have no incentive to draft a "purely online" format.
Pierce 4 large russet potatoes with a fork. Bake directly on the oven rack at 350 degrees until tender, about 1 hour. Let cool, then quarter lengthwise and scoop out the flesh, leaving a 1/4-inch shell. Brush both sides with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Bake, skin-side up, at 450 degrees until crisp, about 15 minutes. Add your favorite team toppings. (For cheesy skins, flip the baked shells over before topping, sprinkle with 1 cup grated cheddar cheese and bake an extra 5 minutes.)
Hagra Diabolist and Rite of Replication. You missed out on living the dream Zendikar 2 card combo. Being in B/U the Diabolist is always better than the Vampire (P1P8) just because maybe possibly perhaps it can happen, but you turned them both down. Honestly though, I would have taken both the Diabolist and Rite.
For a very long time it wasn't allowed by the server but then around june or july last year they reversed it and allowed that. Made trading between accounts owned by the same person a bit easier.
wouldnt a more elegant system be to just do away with boosters all together in MTGO? make all the drafts payout in the same value of tickets. make all drafts require the same value in tickets.(ie 14 tix) and allow you at any time to pay 4 tickets to open a random "pack" directly from the store if you suddenly desired just 15 random cards?
sounds a lot less technical than your UB that sometimes works and sometimes doesnt(release events) and much less confusing. encourages players to PLAY or spend out lots of tix at the end of the sale of a set and not to horde on boosters forever. reduces(more like totally eliminates) time players spend screwing around with sells to/from bots and increases the time spent playing/spending $$ on drafts.
i think this would be a much more elegant solution than paying out in boosters at all. honestly trying to manage how many of this pack + that pack for like 10 sets is really REALLY annoying, and even though i think your solution is creative i think there are easier fixes for the whole thing.
Paul - you make a very valid point. My motive for suggesting this is that is often too much choice and it fragments the players. I must also point out they would be aware of this shortcoming before entering the queue.
All I want is for:
1) there to be classic drafts launching often (which is not the case).
2) to a have one booster type so that i don't keep getting stuck with product I can't use (i.e. wasting money).
I don't really care too much how we do it.
This is a case where democracy in action would suck for those in the minority (oh wait that's every case.) I could see this approach among friends where if someone was really unhappy with the choice the group would accept that as a veto and choose again. That wouldn't happen online. (Particularly since it would be automated.) I know if I particularly disliked a cycle I wouldn't want to be forced into drafting it just because 3 people wanted it and no one else voted together.
What I would like to see is that there are only two draft queues. The current format (ZEN) and then a classic draft queue. You enter the classic queue with universal boosters and when there are 8 players the players get to vote for a format. That format is then played. It would be exciting in that you could possibly play any draft format.
(obviously there would have to be a system to resolve ties in the vote system).
I don't like lacerators in the main deck because they soon get outclassed by better creatures in the mirror, which is usually a war of attrition. Topdecking Lacerators in the middle-game is like drawing blank against Vamps. Middlemen35 is right, Feast maindeck is needed to fight Vampires and, after-boarding, it gets replaced by Hideus End. With only two feasts I can usually cast it without problems.
Block is a lot of Vamps, UW.... Valakut doesn't exist near as much as it used to. Lots of rogue decks are viable, but most are aggressive or very niche decks like Summoningtrap-iona, which essentially runs the Valakut shell of Harrow + Khalni Heart. I'd say, for having 5-6 "viable" decks out there, I think that is perfect for a 1 set block so far.
I agree with everything you said about what's wrong with the current system.
Regardless of whether or not WotC would want to do this, the main problem with a UB is that I don't think it's possible for WotC to implement it.
The existence of simultaneous Nix-pax and Nix-tix queues for TSE tells me that WotC can't do more than 1 kind of entry fee for the same queue.
WotC CAN take one set of packs as an entry fee and award a different kind of pack as prizes. (see current ACR drafts for an example). This means that they could phase out old packs if they wanted to. However I don't believe substituting packs in a entry fee is possible with the current version of Magic Online.
I still say that the best solution for all sides is to phase out the old packs and change classic draft entry fees AND prizes to the current core set.
Feast is indeed awkward, many choices in single set block often are. However, it is absolutely necessary to combat the Vampire mirror (which is common enough that maindecking Feast over Hideous End is correct). Notice how vs almost any non-black deck the Hideous Ends come in for Feasts. Essentially the mirror comes down to Nighthawk advantage, and Feast of Blood is the only spell that kills Nighthawk.
They might not have Nocturnus but they are far more dominant in Block than they have been in Standard. In Zendikar they are the Tier 1 aggro deck, where as in standard they are a tier 2ish aggro afterthought.
yeah i have 20 exodus packs because of the release sealed events which payed out in only E. I think that wizards could do a better job without making a generic booster. It would make events easier to enter but it does seem a little boring and I thought real life and online magic were supposed to mirror each other. I'd be happy if they
1. pay out tse for a tse event, not just exodus.
2. In a 2 man Q or 4/3/2/2 draft pay out the appropriate block but make it random. Instead of paying out reborn for example in a 2 man pay out A, C, or R with equal probability. 1st place of a 4322 would get 1 set + a random booster.
You would think this would be even easier to implement and it still requires people to finish sets or trade for packs. Now if only trading wasn't so awful.....
I was wondering on your decision to sideboard the lacerators... they are extremely powerful and your deck was pretty low on creatures to mainboard feast of blood. I play T2 Standard Vamps and play 26 creatures and still sometimes struggle to have 2 vamps out for Feast.
Just my opinion though.
Also, without M10 for Nocturnus, Vampires are definately not as strong. (Though once Worldwake and the such come out, I can see something good joining the party :P)
I would definitely draft more if i had UB's to fill the holes in my draft sets.
I have to admit this is probably one of the best ideas i have heard in a while. The ability of always having pack X would definitely be a boon to the drafting environment. Especially when it comes to sets like TPF where most players have TP_... UB's would certainly help situations like this or with the unbalance of TSE packs.
My understanding from previous discussions of this idea on PureMTGO is that Wizards has thought of this before and has a reason for not implementing it, but hasn’t said so publically. I doubt they’d be willing to implement a UB that could sub for a set that’s still in print, but I see no reason why a “Classic Pack” as proposed by Marcus Rehnberg wouldn’t work. Nix Pax drafts are a poor substitute: with classic packs in your collection, you’ll draft them, but with a bunch of tix you’ll just spend them on cards.
I'm pretty sure that the author is not advocating the combination of multiple sets into a single booster pack (like wotc is doing with alara block), but rather creating a booster pack "placeholder" which can be used to enter into a draft of any set (as opposed to requiring you to have a particular set of packs to enter a draft). 3 Universal boosters could be used to enter any draft format: TSE, ZZZ, MVW, etc..and you could also, for instance, enter a TSE draft with a tempest booster, exodus booster and universal booster that counts as the stronghold pack. Your comment deals with a separate issue that wotc is experimenting with, as universal boosters would not change any draft format from the paper version. UBs arereally a terrific idea and it's either a suprise wotc has thought of them yet or a shame that the idea was considered and just not yet implemented.
Good job winning the DE....though how do you stand Zendikar...the three playable decks thing gets old pretty fast.
Hello Daniel,
a few thoughts on the issue and why I believe that those combined boosters are NOT a good thing for competitive players.
The main reason many players are using MTGO is to practice their draft skills with new and older sets. For now Wizard is using the combined booster idea for an older set to test the water and not the current block but I still feel little value drafting it because it does not match the paper format. You will never have ACR mixed boosters in real life and it's safe to assume that the drafting experience differs significantly enough to make it a less useful tool for practicing paper drafts.
While I agree that the current system has flaws I would rather see the proposed solution of "Universal Boosters" you can simply use to enter any draft. I don't see the value in changing the composition of the boosters themselves and have no incentive to draft a "purely online" format.
awesome thx!
i kinda wish to use thrull surgeon because it's sick with grim harvest, but it's too slow to be useful early on.
I did, unfortunately all the games I had played since my last login and even all my PM conversations, were all deleted.
Toppings: Cincinnati-style chili, kidney beans, chopped onion, shredded cheddar and oyster crackers
How to Make Classic Potato Skins:
Pierce 4 large russet potatoes with a fork. Bake directly on the oven rack at 350 degrees until tender, about 1 hour. Let cool, then quarter lengthwise and scoop out the flesh, leaving a 1/4-inch shell. Brush both sides with melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Bake, skin-side up, at 450 degrees until crisp, about 15 minutes. Add your favorite team toppings. (For cheesy skins, flip the baked shells over before topping, sprinkle with 1 cup grated cheddar cheese and bake an extra 5 minutes.)
How do you create the Card price charts?
Do you save the prices of every single card every week?
thx a lot for the answer.
Hagra Diabolist and Rite of Replication. You missed out on living the dream Zendikar 2 card combo. Being in B/U the Diabolist is always better than the Vampire (P1P8) just because maybe possibly perhaps it can happen, but you turned them both down. Honestly though, I would have taken both the Diabolist and Rite.
For a very long time it wasn't allowed by the server but then around june or july last year they reversed it and allowed that. Made trading between accounts owned by the same person a bit easier.
haha.
Terramophic Expanse.
Although ctrl-f for your opponent's name on the list of MOCS players is a sweet opening move too.