I guess I understand the policy, but disagree with it to an extent. I personally believe that a few people being unhappy about drafts not firing should not dictate policy for a larger group.
I have no problem with Force of Will being so expensive as it is at least available. When a card can't even be purchsed we have a problem.
I will personally be participating in the Nix/Pax events when they become available.
No, but you spent Roil + Gomazoa to get rid of Scorpion + Hideous End. If he doesn't have removal in response, you draw a card and get the Gomazoa back, while he still loses the Scorpion (0 for 1).
Your Teachings list is very interesting, especially for the Twisted Abos and the lack of white cards. I have tried a number of Fade Aways in the main and sideboard, with mild success.
I think this is a terrible idea. Whenever you switch payout to a 3-block out-of-print set. The 2-man queues flood the market with one of 3 set's packs, making that set's pack worth severely less than the other 2 sets' packs. This makes it difficult for drafters to complete draft sets AND constructed players start to dislike the unbalanced prize payouts.
Switching the prize payout from one classic set to another is a temporary solution that does little to address the overall problem of a lack of demand for drafting older sets.
It was to stop crowding the stores with sets that don't fire off drafts. Apparently newbs would jump in there, buy a draft set of X classic set and then get frustrated waiting for a draft to fire. Ostensibly, that's the reason - WoTC doesn't want frustrated newbs. It's two weeks because that is the time at which MTGO metrics showed the classic sets would experience sharp decline in interest.
Personally, I agree with the policy, but what I don't like is that if they want to run nixtix events for those drafts for sets that were only up for 2 weeks, they should put packs back at the store rather than nixPax events.
Now if they want to get more TSE into the system, they have to run a dual event - one nix tix and one nix pax (12-15 tix) just to get them to run. If their software would allw you to enter with EITHER packs or tix, that would be fine - it would be just one queue - but with two queues it's much harder to get 8 people in either one.
Anonymous, those people you see posting on the classifieds are just hoping to take in a sucker who simply doesn't know better and just happens to have one of those cards - probably they have got 0 buys with those price.
I've been trying to get a survival for a while and I've offered 3-4 tickets above anyone else on the boards. Still no takers.... I don't think it's a matter of price...
I have seen a lot of people over the last few weeks advertising on classified that they are buying Exodus chase rares. It's not that the cards are not available; most folks just don't offer what the stuff is worth. Pete, when you are saying that you need 2 more Manabonds and you are chasing them for weeks it would probably make sense to offer more then 3.5 for one when every dealer is sold out at 5. Just my two cents.
I do agree however that the supply is low - we will see if Wizards sees a need to do anything about it.
This may already be known, but since I have only been on MTGO for a few months I will pose this question. The Masters Edition Sets are available for longer than the release event period correct? If yes, then why are the classic sets not available for a much longer time span. When the product was released in paper we were able to buy it for much longer than two weeks? Are they trying to not overcrowd the store with sets?
For me personally Exodus was released at a rather inopportune time. My wife just had surgery and was on disibilty for a couple of weeks and Christmas just added to the temorary shortage of funds. I didn't even really play any events at that time.
Why do they do not release the sets for a longer time period?
I think that they should return classic events to TSE payouts.... I have tons of MED3 that hardly ever fires.... but only so much TSE. well mostly Exodus.... I wonder how long befre cracking exodus packs becomes profitable?
One the set releases...everything I have seen has Urza's Destiny coming out in December similar to Exouds not March. Ive been watching this set due to my sick desire to own a playset of Carnival Of Souls.
I made the same point to Chris a couple of days ago, Pete. he agreed. Expensive is one thing - but unavailable is another.
The best solution that I can see WoTC going for is to put NixPax/NixTix TTSSEE Sealed Swiss Queues with high payout like MED2 did when there weren't enough duals to go around. Only problem is the nix pax portion, since TSE will still not be available at the store, it would really help out to get more Wasteland, Mox Diamonds and Exodus legacy rares into the system, and to a lesser extent other Tempest rares like Intuition won't hurt.
As for FoW and Mirage cards - there is little hope there. The Mirage block is so big, your chances of getting dreadnought or LED are small - drafting won't help. A single pack of MED in the upcoming MED123 drafts means a FOW will be cracked every 7.5 drats. Not enough to really put a dent in any increased demand for the card.
I would have gone with the Ranger there, verdict is a little high costed, and the Ranger's ability is very powerful. Sets up much easier plays on double colored cards (wall of frost). I also agree with the 40 cards comments. I used to slip in 41 every now and again. Never did work out as well as when you stick to the minimum. Very nice draft though, grabbed a lot of nice gamebreakers.
I would have gone with the Ranger there, verdict is a little high costed, and the Ranger's ability is very powerful. Sets up much easier plays on double colored cards (wall of frost). I also agree with the 40 cards comments. I used to slip in 41 every now and again. Never did work out as well as when you stick to the minimum. Very nice draft though, grabbed a lot of nice gamebreakers.
Hey, I'm not sure why there are a lot of negative comments on wspaniels works. Personally, I enjoy reading them. I think his articles spark good debates, and look forward to future articles. I have also taken several classes that explored game theory (in Business Strategy and Economics)and I really appreciate seeing magic decisions examined in this light. Perhaps I could get some extra credit for playing magic :).
I wanted to bring up a factor that has cost me a game or two, not huge probabilities, but perhaps a factor to consider. In playing an opponent on MTGO, sometimes waiting unil their turn will bring their own Expanse, which they may crack right away. Cracking yours in response can potentially lead to quick clicks through the OK's or an extra click attributable to lag frustration that will leave the opponent with no land as a result of sac'ing their land. I usually hate interrupting the flow of the game with this tactic, so I personally don't do it. There are a lot of people who do though, and I have lost (ok, conceded) games because I have clicked OK when I ws prompted to select my land.
R1G3#1 (Turn 4)
Your hand is quite good even without Ob Nixilis, so I don't see any reason to prioritize Into the Roil here (ostensibly to find the second Swamp). In fact I'm sure you're not giving Into the Roil enough credit. This deck in particular needs to save its Roils for desperate times, since it has literally no other way to affect the opponent's board. See previous game! Anyway, I think it's best to prioritize landfall on that Soul Stair Expedition, considering you have 2 great targets already and no more land after this one.
You'll also cast the Grasp this turn. This might seem suboptimal, but you do have 4 more guys in your deck that care about the Scorpion (in addition to Ob Nix in your hand). This play skirts the main drawback of Paralyzing Grasp, which is that it can't usually be used on offense (here you'd be pre-emptively removing a blocker). I think this is important, because you want/need to be the aggressor. Put another way, rather than Grasp a Bog Tatters that has already hit once, I'd like to turn that Tatters into a bad card which can't block while we win the race.
Finally, if you insist on digging for land and/or refuse to trade the Grasp for the Scorpion (either of which is defensible), the best Into the Roil play is to use it on your Gomazoa in response to its own ability after blocking the Scorpion. Opponent probably nails it with Hideous End in response, but you're still 2-for-2, the Specter is still in his hand, and you've drawn out his best removal spell for no tempo or life loss.
no one insulted history degrees moerutora...i simply said no one with a history degree should write a pop-psychology book and be taken seriously. Id would be like a computer major writing a book on the history of spartan wars. For someone about to get his bachelors you forgot the number one rule, Reading comprehension is tech.
Sometimes the proper number of lands is greater than 17 but less than 18. In these cases, 41 cards can make sense.
I would have picked up the Divination. Card advantage is really important in Core Set limited as there are less ways to trick your opponents out of cards due to the vanilla nature of the format. Drawing cards is especially important when you have a bomb like Overrun as with enough card draw it's like you have more copies of your best card in your deck.
The blue element of your deck seemed slightly forced - I think the Air Elemental affected this. Four spells requiring double blue combined with 2 Howls and and Overrun seem counterproductive. However, Air Elemental is really good and Sleep does pair excellently with Howl tokens. I agree with the previous comment that the Merfolk Looter would have been a better pick over the Phantom Warrior. Double blue is rough for your deck and should be reserved for cards that win you the game immediately.
Rampant Growths become more important in your deck with the triple green requirements of Overrun and the Howls. They serve the dual purpose of letting you play Air Elemental while reducing the number of islands needed, thus making your Howl's even stronger. In fact their third purpose is to thin your deck of lands so that you can draw your Overrun.
So I think Divination, Merfolk Looter, and Rampant Growth would have been stronger picks. With that amount of card drawing and hand manipulation you would be almost guaranteed to cast a game-ending combination of Howl/Sleep, Howl/Overrun, or Sleep/Overrun in every game.
*I haven't played MODO for almost a year so take my advice with a grain of salt.
**Congrats on winning the MTGOFantasyFootball09 championship!
I'm really sorry about the double post (and the typo for Persecute :) ) - stupid browser hung in the middle of the submission. Can a webmaster delete the extra post and this one please, cheers....
Man, do i hate the beginning of a new deck. Unless you're lucky (or probably lsv) there are going to be some bad beats, especially in 100CS! Still stick in there, it'll come good eventually.
So you're playing a combo deck with no blue, so you have very few ways to protect your combo. So you need to look at other approaches to forcing your combo through. More discard will help, if they have no hand they can't stop you. The reusable nightmare void might help and Persecution in the sideboard. Recursion will mean that you can reuse your combo even if they stop it the first time round. how about adding a copy of volrath's stronghold and some of the green return to you hand spells? Better and quicker tutors would help get the combo out when you have one of the pieces. Try adding Tainted Pact for a hail mary pass. Finally better answers to other problems may help you - more removal like maelstrom pulse and putrefy. And what about adding spike weaver as protection from your own progenitus (at least for a few turns).
Hope some of this helps. I look forward to seeing the evolution of the deck!
I guess I understand the policy, but disagree with it to an extent. I personally believe that a few people being unhappy about drafts not firing should not dictate policy for a larger group.
I have no problem with Force of Will being so expensive as it is at least available. When a card can't even be purchsed we have a problem.
I will personally be participating in the Nix/Pax events when they become available.
No, but you spent Roil + Gomazoa to get rid of Scorpion + Hideous End. If he doesn't have removal in response, you draw a card and get the Gomazoa back, while he still loses the Scorpion (0 for 1).
Your Teachings list is very interesting, especially for the Twisted Abos and the lack of white cards. I have tried a number of Fade Aways in the main and sideboard, with mild success.
I think this is a terrible idea. Whenever you switch payout to a 3-block out-of-print set. The 2-man queues flood the market with one of 3 set's packs, making that set's pack worth severely less than the other 2 sets' packs. This makes it difficult for drafters to complete draft sets AND constructed players start to dislike the unbalanced prize payouts.
Switching the prize payout from one classic set to another is a temporary solution that does little to address the overall problem of a lack of demand for drafting older sets.
It was to stop crowding the stores with sets that don't fire off drafts. Apparently newbs would jump in there, buy a draft set of X classic set and then get frustrated waiting for a draft to fire. Ostensibly, that's the reason - WoTC doesn't want frustrated newbs. It's two weeks because that is the time at which MTGO metrics showed the classic sets would experience sharp decline in interest.
Personally, I agree with the policy, but what I don't like is that if they want to run nixtix events for those drafts for sets that were only up for 2 weeks, they should put packs back at the store rather than nixPax events.
Now if they want to get more TSE into the system, they have to run a dual event - one nix tix and one nix pax (12-15 tix) just to get them to run. If their software would allw you to enter with EITHER packs or tix, that would be fine - it would be just one queue - but with two queues it's much harder to get 8 people in either one.
ugh thanks for spoiling my getting into playing classic dreams for another year...
It's not a matter of price.
Anonymous, those people you see posting on the classifieds are just hoping to take in a sucker who simply doesn't know better and just happens to have one of those cards - probably they have got 0 buys with those price.
I've been trying to get a survival for a while and I've offered 3-4 tickets above anyone else on the boards. Still no takers.... I don't think it's a matter of price...
Destiny will be 2011.
Saga - March 29
Legacy - June 21
MEDIV - Dec 13
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/112...
I have seen a lot of people over the last few weeks advertising on classified that they are buying Exodus chase rares. It's not that the cards are not available; most folks just don't offer what the stuff is worth. Pete, when you are saying that you need 2 more Manabonds and you are chasing them for weeks it would probably make sense to offer more then 3.5 for one when every dealer is sold out at 5. Just my two cents.
I do agree however that the supply is low - we will see if Wizards sees a need to do anything about it.
This may already be known, but since I have only been on MTGO for a few months I will pose this question. The Masters Edition Sets are available for longer than the release event period correct? If yes, then why are the classic sets not available for a much longer time span. When the product was released in paper we were able to buy it for much longer than two weeks? Are they trying to not overcrowd the store with sets?
For me personally Exodus was released at a rather inopportune time. My wife just had surgery and was on disibilty for a couple of weeks and Christmas just added to the temorary shortage of funds. I didn't even really play any events at that time.
Why do they do not release the sets for a longer time period?
I think that they should return classic events to TSE payouts.... I have tons of MED3 that hardly ever fires.... but only so much TSE. well mostly Exodus.... I wonder how long befre cracking exodus packs becomes profitable?
One the set releases...everything I have seen has Urza's Destiny coming out in December similar to Exouds not March. Ive been watching this set due to my sick desire to own a playset of Carnival Of Souls.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/356
It's underneath the picture, along with the price tag of $34.99
Null Rod, LED and Dreadnought can't (won't) be in Relics, they're on the reserve list.
I made the same point to Chris a couple of days ago, Pete. he agreed. Expensive is one thing - but unavailable is another.
The best solution that I can see WoTC going for is to put NixPax/NixTix TTSSEE Sealed Swiss Queues with high payout like MED2 did when there weren't enough duals to go around. Only problem is the nix pax portion, since TSE will still not be available at the store, it would really help out to get more Wasteland, Mox Diamonds and Exodus legacy rares into the system, and to a lesser extent other Tempest rares like Intuition won't hurt.
As for FoW and Mirage cards - there is little hope there. The Mirage block is so big, your chances of getting dreadnought or LED are small - drafting won't help. A single pack of MED in the upcoming MED123 drafts means a FOW will be cracked every 7.5 drats. Not enough to really put a dent in any increased demand for the card.
d'oh! sold my affin cards a tad early =p oh well, i wasn't gonna play it anyways! nice article ham
I would have gone with the Ranger there, verdict is a little high costed, and the Ranger's ability is very powerful. Sets up much easier plays on double colored cards (wall of frost). I also agree with the 40 cards comments. I used to slip in 41 every now and again. Never did work out as well as when you stick to the minimum. Very nice draft though, grabbed a lot of nice gamebreakers.
I would have gone with the Ranger there, verdict is a little high costed, and the Ranger's ability is very powerful. Sets up much easier plays on double colored cards (wall of frost). I also agree with the 40 cards comments. I used to slip in 41 every now and again. Never did work out as well as when you stick to the minimum. Very nice draft though, grabbed a lot of nice gamebreakers.
Does Into the Roil draw a card if it lacks a legal target?
Hey, I'm not sure why there are a lot of negative comments on wspaniels works. Personally, I enjoy reading them. I think his articles spark good debates, and look forward to future articles. I have also taken several classes that explored game theory (in Business Strategy and Economics)and I really appreciate seeing magic decisions examined in this light. Perhaps I could get some extra credit for playing magic :).
I wanted to bring up a factor that has cost me a game or two, not huge probabilities, but perhaps a factor to consider. In playing an opponent on MTGO, sometimes waiting unil their turn will bring their own Expanse, which they may crack right away. Cracking yours in response can potentially lead to quick clicks through the OK's or an extra click attributable to lag frustration that will leave the opponent with no land as a result of sac'ing their land. I usually hate interrupting the flow of the game with this tactic, so I personally don't do it. There are a lot of people who do though, and I have lost (ok, conceded) games because I have clicked OK when I ws prompted to select my land.
R1G3#1 (Turn 4)
Your hand is quite good even without Ob Nixilis, so I don't see any reason to prioritize Into the Roil here (ostensibly to find the second Swamp). In fact I'm sure you're not giving Into the Roil enough credit. This deck in particular needs to save its Roils for desperate times, since it has literally no other way to affect the opponent's board. See previous game! Anyway, I think it's best to prioritize landfall on that Soul Stair Expedition, considering you have 2 great targets already and no more land after this one.
You'll also cast the Grasp this turn. This might seem suboptimal, but you do have 4 more guys in your deck that care about the Scorpion (in addition to Ob Nix in your hand). This play skirts the main drawback of Paralyzing Grasp, which is that it can't usually be used on offense (here you'd be pre-emptively removing a blocker). I think this is important, because you want/need to be the aggressor. Put another way, rather than Grasp a Bog Tatters that has already hit once, I'd like to turn that Tatters into a bad card which can't block while we win the race.
Finally, if you insist on digging for land and/or refuse to trade the Grasp for the Scorpion (either of which is defensible), the best Into the Roil play is to use it on your Gomazoa in response to its own ability after blocking the Scorpion. Opponent probably nails it with Hideous End in response, but you're still 2-for-2, the Specter is still in his hand, and you've drawn out his best removal spell for no tempo or life loss.
no one insulted history degrees moerutora...i simply said no one with a history degree should write a pop-psychology book and be taken seriously. Id would be like a computer major writing a book on the history of spartan wars. For someone about to get his bachelors you forgot the number one rule, Reading comprehension is tech.
Sometimes the proper number of lands is greater than 17 but less than 18. In these cases, 41 cards can make sense.
I would have picked up the Divination. Card advantage is really important in Core Set limited as there are less ways to trick your opponents out of cards due to the vanilla nature of the format. Drawing cards is especially important when you have a bomb like Overrun as with enough card draw it's like you have more copies of your best card in your deck.
The blue element of your deck seemed slightly forced - I think the Air Elemental affected this. Four spells requiring double blue combined with 2 Howls and and Overrun seem counterproductive. However, Air Elemental is really good and Sleep does pair excellently with Howl tokens. I agree with the previous comment that the Merfolk Looter would have been a better pick over the Phantom Warrior. Double blue is rough for your deck and should be reserved for cards that win you the game immediately.
Rampant Growths become more important in your deck with the triple green requirements of Overrun and the Howls. They serve the dual purpose of letting you play Air Elemental while reducing the number of islands needed, thus making your Howl's even stronger. In fact their third purpose is to thin your deck of lands so that you can draw your Overrun.
So I think Divination, Merfolk Looter, and Rampant Growth would have been stronger picks. With that amount of card drawing and hand manipulation you would be almost guaranteed to cast a game-ending combination of Howl/Sleep, Howl/Overrun, or Sleep/Overrun in every game.
*I haven't played MODO for almost a year so take my advice with a grain of salt.
**Congrats on winning the MTGOFantasyFootball09 championship!
I'm really sorry about the double post (and the typo for Persecute :) ) - stupid browser hung in the middle of the submission. Can a webmaster delete the extra post and this one please, cheers....
Man, do i hate the beginning of a new deck. Unless you're lucky (or probably lsv) there are going to be some bad beats, especially in 100CS! Still stick in there, it'll come good eventually.
So you're playing a combo deck with no blue, so you have very few ways to protect your combo. So you need to look at other approaches to forcing your combo through. More discard will help, if they have no hand they can't stop you. The reusable nightmare void might help and Persecution in the sideboard. Recursion will mean that you can reuse your combo even if they stop it the first time round. how about adding a copy of volrath's stronghold and some of the green return to you hand spells? Better and quicker tutors would help get the combo out when you have one of the pieces. Try adding Tainted Pact for a hail mary pass. Finally better answers to other problems may help you - more removal like maelstrom pulse and putrefy. And what about adding spike weaver as protection from your own progenitus (at least for a few turns).
Hope some of this helps. I look forward to seeing the evolution of the deck!