I just want to point out that a turn 4 Eater of Days can very easily win you the game very quickly. Its only danger is if your opponent gets artifact destruction, but that's very rare in this format. Either way I would take it off your "horrible cards" list.
Harrow is one of those cards that is too risky for me to include maindeck. Because the sacrifice of two lands is part of the cost, counterspells and Spellstutter Sprite make Harrow too risky in many games.
If it is within your comfort range, Harrow can be incredibly powerful and can easily swing a game in your favor. Depending on the existing metagame, I would consider including Harrow as a sideboard card for certain matchups.
As a Spike, I can't help but notice performance measurements, even when they are only visible to me and have no DCI relevance. When the system slaps down a yardstick, it's in my nature to stand next to it, even when I know it's a very muddied measure with no external meaning.
Your point on the liquidity of the avatar market is extremely dead on. Not only will you not find a buy but if a bot offers you anything for it it will be a nickel on the $. At $25 that's $1.25 for your alternate art Serra.
If there are 2 Oracles in play and a land on top of the library, after you click the land to play, the program asks which Oracle you are using. You click the Oracle and only then that land comes into play.
Why do you keep mentioning your rating changes? Having "rating points at stake" makes it seem like they have intrinsic value, which is true of DCI ratings as they grant byes at GP's or invites to Nationals. MTGO ratings have no relevance at all.
I don't think grabbing all alternate art serras is the way to go anyway, because that's going to be the MOST chosen prize avatar, so its value will come way down. Personally I'm a collector/packrat, and I'm going to get all different avatars I don't have, to come closer to the unreachable goal of owning one of every card that exists.
The prices listed for vanguard avatars are a bit misleading to anyone wanting to sell these things, by the way. The stores like MTGOtraders follow supply and demand, sure, in that some of the older promo avatars are very few in number, so they reasonably list them at a higher price. But the "liquidity" of the vanguard market is very poor, as very few people ever buy any at all. Vanguard isn't played very much, and there aren't many collectors who want the cards just to have them. So when you have a $10 or $25 vanguard burning a hole in your pocket, odds are you won't find a buyer for it.
Right after this tournament in particular, I'm expecting to see a few hundred sellers hitting the auction house, message boards, etc. hoping to unload their avatars and earn some tix... And hardly any buyers waiting around to pick some up. Anybody who's excitedly thinking they're gonna make a quick 50 or 100 tix is gonna get a big cold splash of reality in the face when they try and sell.
For someone of your obvious acumen and intelligence I am sure it would be very easy to pick up. For some kid in High School it might be marginally harder. But kids these days are doing this stuff in junior high even. That is why I didn't even consider the idea you might find any of that difficult. (Though I can see how it might seem a little opaque at first and if anyone is confused by any of that they can chat with me in person for clarifications and where to look for help etc.)
G.I.M.P is short for 'Gnu Image Manipulation Program' which is open source and thus free to download. It is NOT the simplest program to use but to screen capture from it is relatively simple. My apologies for not spelling that out before. I sometimes forget it is not as ubiquitous as I would like to believe.
On the other hand since your method works I am glad you are going to continue using it. My suggestions were geared towards helping others.
"lol, it's easy, just figure out what I mean by 'gimp,' edit and save images in a separate application, get yourself your own server and figure out how to upload things to it, or create an account with a storage site and upload manually to that instead.
"Then the easiest part is inserting the image. Just figure out how to point to the stuff you figured out how to upload, learn what a div tag is, and learn how to communicate style settings in html. Really, just learn to edit in html. It's very simple."
OK, that's definitely an option. Or I could edit text and images together inside a basic wysiwyg word-processing environment, click a button, copy the resulting html, paste it into Pure, and submit.
I think I'll stick to my version of "simple" for now, but you keep rockin' the div tags for maximum control over the style settings. :)
To say I am 90% sure X is better than Y, then there is only a 10% chance that Y is better than X but the data just coincidentally formed itself in the manner it did. It does NOT mean that X is 90% better than Y.
Also, I tested this theory that high mana costs distort win percentage, and I found this: for every one mana extra a card costs, its win percentage increases by 1.1% on average. Thus, it should not be taken as a given that I should be in good position to win just because I paid five mana to cast a spell. The quality of the spell is also of great importance here.
Oh! lol I just alt-printscreen then open gimp and save and edit if needed. Takes a moment at most and then I upload to my own server. Since the files are not large and take little bandwidth and my articles don't draw a huge crowd the 10k hits the pics combined might eventually get don't really matter. There are also free storage sites you can use instead like photobucket and deviantart.
Also if you already have the image served some where the easy part is to insert hmtl code to link to the image. Position it inside a div tag for maximum control over the placement and put all the style settings you want in the div tag. Very simple, no fuss no muss.
Yeah that is surprising to me one the one hand because I remember being really excited by the set the first time it came out. It was such a nice change from stronghold and the oaths were a "surprise" card. But in the decade+2 years or so it's ability to draw has waned I guess. And that isn't that surprising (on the other hand) because there are only so many cards in the set that matter to the currently played formats online. It sucks for anyone stuck with the cards but it is a strange lesson learned.
I'm talking about the process of using Pure to upload and insert an image. That's a nightmare that involves capturing, editing and saving in a separate program, followed by a double-digit click count and 2-3 drop-down menus to insert an image into an article.
Windows Live Writer lets me work like I'm just using a word processor, with great image-editing tools built right in.
Someone on the Wizards forum did some napkin math. Given the following events:
- no dealers cracked packs of Exodus to sell
- the initial release events all failed to fire
- ExExEx drafts fired only once an hour
- minimal pack opening outside of events (probably by people who don't contribute to the marketplace anyway)
He figured out that at most, a few dozen people could play Oath yesterday. And that's assuming mass cooperation between EVERYONE on the server to consolidate each copy of Oath into the hands of a few. Foil Oaths are in the "roflcopter" numbers, too.
Of course it's not just Oath. Every other Exodus rare is available in the same numbers. But that's my point. No one is buying Thopter Squadron. And the one person who does want it, probably wants a playset, which is hard to assemble right now. So Heath can't sell his two copies. And no one who cracks a Thopter Squadron is going to advertise "human selling Thopter Squadron - 1", and it's not worth selling to a bot for .08 tickets. (Fictional price.) So what happens is, Exodus prices drop across the board, but demand is still constant or higher.
tl;dr - So little Exodus is circulating that the numbers are goofed.
Is Exodus' overall devaluing the result of so few orders being placed? Nothing outside of the 5 most popular rares are worth anything, and the top 5 rares are perpetually out of stock. Zero commons and uncommons are worth anything, except maybe (Price of Progress) in mono-red burn, but that's stretching it. Because in my book, a set of Exodus = a set of the big 3 + City of Traitors. And that set has definitely increased week over week.
If only (Pandemonium) and/or (Seismic Assault) were Standard/Extended legal/viable right now then that would help at least a little bit. Remember when Tempest events were making new (Reflecting Pool)s during the height of 5cc in Standard? That was nice and it may have cracked a little bit more Tempest.
Why, even when I'm logged in, does the spam filter think that I'm spam every single time? Katastrophe has cleared the captcha on several different days, Katastrophe has been registered for awhile, and Katastrophe has even placed at least one order. If the filter thinks that I might be spam then I can't imagine what criteria it's using to judge me. "function isSpam(username) return true end" maybe?
i kind of agree, there are no cards i would pick over hideous end and disfigure and i can honestly see disfigure being slightly worse but not 90%..thats just craziness. So I still fail to see exactly what im supposed to walk away from this with. If someone has smooth mana draws and casts a 5 mana flyer they have a good chance to win? well that was kind of a given already.
I just want to point out that a turn 4 Eater of Days can very easily win you the game very quickly. Its only danger is if your opponent gets artifact destruction, but that's very rare in this format. Either way I would take it off your "horrible cards" list.
Harrow is one of those cards that is too risky for me to include maindeck. Because the sacrifice of two lands is part of the cost, counterspells and Spellstutter Sprite make Harrow too risky in many games.
If it is within your comfort range, Harrow can be incredibly powerful and can easily swing a game in your favor. Depending on the existing metagame, I would consider including Harrow as a sideboard card for certain matchups.
As a Spike, I can't help but notice performance measurements, even when they are only visible to me and have no DCI relevance. When the system slaps down a yardstick, it's in my nature to stand next to it, even when I know it's a very muddied measure with no external meaning.
A hard to obtain picture. Value/Worth is in the eye of the beholder.
thats more like what its worth..i mean its a picture basically
Your point on the liquidity of the avatar market is extremely dead on. Not only will you not find a buy but if a bot offers you anything for it it will be a nickel on the $. At $25 that's $1.25 for your alternate art Serra.
If there are 2 Oracles in play and a land on top of the library, after you click the land to play, the program asks which Oracle you are using. You click the Oracle and only then that land comes into play.
LE
mtgo asks you to select the oracle whose ability you are using.
how does mtgo deal with 2x Oracles in play? and how can an opponent know which Oracle's ability was used the first time?
Why do you keep mentioning your rating changes? Having "rating points at stake" makes it seem like they have intrinsic value, which is true of DCI ratings as they grant byes at GP's or invites to Nationals. MTGO ratings have no relevance at all.
I don't think grabbing all alternate art serras is the way to go anyway, because that's going to be the MOST chosen prize avatar, so its value will come way down. Personally I'm a collector/packrat, and I'm going to get all different avatars I don't have, to come closer to the unreachable goal of owning one of every card that exists.
The prices listed for vanguard avatars are a bit misleading to anyone wanting to sell these things, by the way. The stores like MTGOtraders follow supply and demand, sure, in that some of the older promo avatars are very few in number, so they reasonably list them at a higher price. But the "liquidity" of the vanguard market is very poor, as very few people ever buy any at all. Vanguard isn't played very much, and there aren't many collectors who want the cards just to have them. So when you have a $10 or $25 vanguard burning a hole in your pocket, odds are you won't find a buyer for it.
Right after this tournament in particular, I'm expecting to see a few hundred sellers hitting the auction house, message boards, etc. hoping to unload their avatars and earn some tix... And hardly any buyers waiting around to pick some up. Anybody who's excitedly thinking they're gonna make a quick 50 or 100 tix is gonna get a big cold splash of reality in the face when they try and sell.
For someone of your obvious acumen and intelligence I am sure it would be very easy to pick up. For some kid in High School it might be marginally harder. But kids these days are doing this stuff in junior high even. That is why I didn't even consider the idea you might find any of that difficult. (Though I can see how it might seem a little opaque at first and if anyone is confused by any of that they can chat with me in person for clarifications and where to look for help etc.)
G.I.M.P is short for 'Gnu Image Manipulation Program' which is open source and thus free to download. It is NOT the simplest program to use but to screen capture from it is relatively simple. My apologies for not spelling that out before. I sometimes forget it is not as ubiquitous as I would like to believe.
On the other hand since your method works I am glad you are going to continue using it. My suggestions were geared towards helping others.
"lol, it's easy, just figure out what I mean by 'gimp,' edit and save images in a separate application, get yourself your own server and figure out how to upload things to it, or create an account with a storage site and upload manually to that instead.
"Then the easiest part is inserting the image. Just figure out how to point to the stuff you figured out how to upload, learn what a div tag is, and learn how to communicate style settings in html. Really, just learn to edit in html. It's very simple."
OK, that's definitely an option. Or I could edit text and images together inside a basic wysiwyg word-processing environment, click a button, copy the resulting html, paste it into Pure, and submit.
I think I'll stick to my version of "simple" for now, but you keep rockin' the div tags for maximum control over the style settings. :)
To say I am 90% sure X is better than Y, then there is only a 10% chance that Y is better than X but the data just coincidentally formed itself in the manner it did. It does NOT mean that X is 90% better than Y.
Also, I tested this theory that high mana costs distort win percentage, and I found this: for every one mana extra a card costs, its win percentage increases by 1.1% on average. Thus, it should not be taken as a given that I should be in good position to win just because I paid five mana to cast a spell. The quality of the spell is also of great importance here.
Oh! lol I just alt-printscreen then open gimp and save and edit if needed. Takes a moment at most and then I upload to my own server. Since the files are not large and take little bandwidth and my articles don't draw a huge crowd the 10k hits the pics combined might eventually get don't really matter. There are also free storage sites you can use instead like photobucket and deviantart.
Also if you already have the image served some where the easy part is to insert hmtl code to link to the image. Position it inside a div tag for maximum control over the placement and put all the style settings you want in the div tag. Very simple, no fuss no muss.
Yeah that is surprising to me one the one hand because I remember being really excited by the set the first time it came out. It was such a nice change from stronghold and the oaths were a "surprise" card. But in the decade+2 years or so it's ability to draw has waned I guess. And that isn't that surprising (on the other hand) because there are only so many cards in the set that matter to the currently played formats online. It sucks for anyone stuck with the cards but it is a strange lesson learned.
I'm talking about the process of using Pure to upload and insert an image. That's a nightmare that involves capturing, editing and saving in a separate program, followed by a double-digit click count and 2-3 drop-down menus to insert an image into an article.
Windows Live Writer lets me work like I'm just using a word processor, with great image-editing tools built right in.
Maybe. Maybe I'm just so fast that the software assumes I can't be human. (hah)
But then again I always sit there and read the article or listen to the podcast.
Someone on the Wizards forum did some napkin math. Given the following events:
- no dealers cracked packs of Exodus to sell
- the initial release events all failed to fire
- ExExEx drafts fired only once an hour
- minimal pack opening outside of events (probably by people who don't contribute to the marketplace anyway)
He figured out that at most, a few dozen people could play Oath yesterday. And that's assuming mass cooperation between EVERYONE on the server to consolidate each copy of Oath into the hands of a few. Foil Oaths are in the "roflcopter" numbers, too.
Of course it's not just Oath. Every other Exodus rare is available in the same numbers. But that's my point. No one is buying Thopter Squadron. And the one person who does want it, probably wants a playset, which is hard to assemble right now. So Heath can't sell his two copies. And no one who cracks a Thopter Squadron is going to advertise "human selling Thopter Squadron - 1", and it's not worth selling to a bot for .08 tickets. (Fictional price.) So what happens is, Exodus prices drop across the board, but demand is still constant or higher.
tl;dr - So little Exodus is circulating that the numbers are goofed.
I suspect it has something to do with our bandwidth and timing of the clicks.
Is Exodus' overall devaluing the result of so few orders being placed? Nothing outside of the 5 most popular rares are worth anything, and the top 5 rares are perpetually out of stock. Zero commons and uncommons are worth anything, except maybe (Price of Progress) in mono-red burn, but that's stretching it. Because in my book, a set of Exodus = a set of the big 3 + City of Traitors. And that set has definitely increased week over week.
If only (Pandemonium) and/or (Seismic Assault) were Standard/Extended legal/viable right now then that would help at least a little bit. Remember when Tempest events were making new (Reflecting Pool)s during the height of 5cc in Standard? That was nice and it may have cracked a little bit more Tempest.
Why, even when I'm logged in, does the spam filter think that I'm spam every single time? Katastrophe has cleared the captcha on several different days, Katastrophe has been registered for awhile, and Katastrophe has even placed at least one order. If the filter thinks that I might be spam then I can't imagine what criteria it's using to judge me. "function isSpam(username) return true end" maybe?
It is actually quite easy if you just stay in the html part of the editor. The rich text editor is not quite reliable as a translator.
i kind of agree, there are no cards i would pick over hideous end and disfigure and i can honestly see disfigure being slightly worse but not 90%..thats just craziness. So I still fail to see exactly what im supposed to walk away from this with. If someone has smooth mana draws and casts a 5 mana flyer they have a good chance to win? well that was kind of a given already.
Store it away as trivia?
awesome man, thanks a lot!