How different is that from packs though (even in paper, now that most of a box's value is concentrated in Masterpieces)? As I address in the article, ever since the chests became tradable, chests are being opened by two groups: new players who don't know any better and people who can get enough chests to mitigate some of the variance. Wizards biasing the packs towards lands and flashy cards helps the first group, and the second group gets a better deal with Play Points (which also helps with the variance). Of course, the real boon for chests will occur whenever the commons/uncommons get value (aka whenever crafting happens--that might be years away though).
@Scrounging Bandar: Soon we will be seeing comments on YouTube like: "Did anyone else find themselves watching this video about a cat monkey because of Tribal Evaluation?" :)
"Whoa, is it me, or did Metallic Mimic just blow Adaptive Automaton out of the water?"
Maybe but it's worth bearing in mind that the Mimic is an absolutely terrible late-game top-deck where the Automaton can be just the buff you need to swing for lethal or break through a board-stall or whatever. Of course, the real question is "why not both?"
I can certainly look at that, though the feedback I have been getting is people would prefer me to go more in depth on the picks and summarise the games more (rather than go into detail on it).
I definitely feel once you committed to white and was open the picks made themselves so not much to say there.
16 would have been my pick. In the future would you be willing to detail your starting hand a bit more? Especially in this aggro deck it might very well have been some good mulligans opportunities that are hard to consider.
I feel you had too many reanimate targets, especially since you didn't have any want to get them from your hand to the graveyard. and some weren't quite what you'd want
Ulamog: Prolly the best as getting him fast just wins games as we saw.
Noxious Gearhulk and Dromoka: I'd run these as they'd be best able to catch you up from falling behind if you had a slow reanimate.
I'd only have played these three.
I wouldn't have played living death, you had no way to reliably discard cards so it's really a clunky five mana reanimate that conflicts with all your removal, plus you could have had acidic slime which I'd really have considered 5 mana as my high curve on actual hardcasts.
Woodfall Primus: Fine but fast reanimation aren't going to beat ulamogg and won't have target. You're more likely going to want noxious or dromoka in a slower reanimate.
Rampaging Baloths: Best you have as catchup, you pick demon over deranged hermit at one point and I'd have taken hermit, easier to cast and the tokens could really buy time. Baloths would be pretty win more.
Rune-scarred: What would you tutor for? If you got a entomb/exhume start you'd never pick him and if you hardcast him you might be so far behind you'd probably have to tutor for removal which is already a bad spot.
As for picks, I'd have at least considered forbid it give you a way to discard from hand and in reanimate entomb/buried are great but having reanimate targets in hand are just dead cards without an out which I think crippled your consistency. Cloudgoat ranger is at 5 mana and makes creature which are great reanimate targets since they play two roles as being great early and can salvage a slow start.
Deluge would have been better.
I feel you don't prioritize fixing enough as Baloths wasn't needed and temple or confluence would have given you some mana consistency.
Lastly, you should have taken thoughtseize over dromoka. Weird but it lets you target yourself to discard to grave, and you had plenty of fattys to reanimate at that point regardless of how good dromoka is, which would be more likely to wheel.
I think that prize structure for the Single Game Legaue was a mistake. Regardless of how the actual value works out when you add the cards opened, seeing that the absolute best prize you can win is the entry fee back viscerally feels like a rip off. It's just a very bad first impression to launch a new tournament structure with and would it really have been too much for the top prize to be 150 points or 120 points and a Treasure Chest or something?
Yeah, I kinda mentioned the fliers in passing at the end of the blue section, though I could have mentioned how Hinterland Drake looks better than the typical Cloud Elemental. I don't know how great Aether Swooper is if you aren't heavy into energy (though it's fine without it). I do have to stop at some point though--one of my goals has been to try and write more-concisely, and that unfortunately means some cards will be left out. Thanks for the feedback though :)
Though you touched on Wind-Kin Raiders, blue has some good cheap flyers. Aether Swooper, Skyship Plunderer and Hinterland Drake are all better than they look, and I have gotten some good wins off the back of a swarm of cheap flyers.
I love the complete lack of sources. The kind of details you are listing are not publicly known. It's also easy to dispute one of those--seven years ago MTGO had a hard cap on the number of players that could be online. So there is no way MTGO had 5 times the number of players when that cap was less than is in the friendly league alone.
Cant be bothered with more discussion apart from saying this;
Paper estimate is hard but something like 7 million players worldwide who purchase for more than 30 dollars per month.
MtgO = 20 thousand players today(that generate traffic today). At least 10k of them are or have been 1900 elo rating capacities, which means pretty good.
MtgO is abysmal compared to paper - but catches money from the individual customer much faster.
MtgO had 5 times the players 7 years ago, mtgo dwindles because of poor management.
People who are on the PT or try to get there play A LOT of mtgo.
And you write as though the only method to have fun in Magic is to win.
"Only rarely have I faced opponents who do not do their best to win in mtg games/matches." This, your tone, and your statements all imply that you believe all players only have fun through winning, and therefore prereleases are useless. Then, you use your anecdotes to explain your point.
If my writing lead to you believe I think that fun and winning are mutually exclusive, perhaps I should have been more careful. I am simply stating that having fun does not necessarily include a requirement to win. You can have fun and not win. You can win and not have fun. You can win and have fun.
As to your comments regarding your negativity toward Wizards--of course they want to make money. But if you interact with them, you'll see that they also want to make a great game. Given your statements and tone though, perhaps you should just stop doing business with any company that wants to make money, since you seem to indicate they are all out to get us.
To the contrary, I think a lot of players do forget that most players play Magic because it is fun. I would be shocked if any less than 99.999% of players started playing Magic because it was fun. Some transition to playing to scratch a competitive itch. But, they are in the far minority of the player base.
Each time there is a change to MTGO, there is a subset of players who only focus on the EV. But look at some of the lower EV events on MTGO--particularly the friendly sealed league. If you add 2 packs, it has the worst EV. Yet, that is the most popular league. I would be surprised if even half of the MTGO players out there are the hyper competitive EV spike types. It seems reasonable to believe that they are overrepresented on MTGO, but people so often forget the casual players that play MTGO.
I think a lot more competitive players play because the game is fun--how many draft a cube afterward or play variants or EDH? This is what I think pre-releases epitomize. The focus of a prerelease is the cards and the fun of a new set. I'd wager that plenty of competitive players play in prereleases because they are fun.
Well one thing is certain. WotC does all what they can to earn money. On the other hand they also try to give certain target groups of players (TOs/Judges) what they want.
"Prizes are a factor, but the more important factor is prestige."
Yes. But what is the prestige?
Wizards of the Coast would say 'make it a good experience for the players'. Give prizes for those that come in cosplay, buy a pizza, do some kind of achievements based game... whatever ... that will make the event remarkable in some way for players. While the casual player should be the most valued. Casual player is a player that does not usually attend regular events but stops by to buy packs, from time to time some singles and shows up at more 'casual' events like prerelease or game day. At all the WotC conferences I've been we were told 'sell the experience' a zillion times. Our LGSs obviously do not listen...but well what they can do if the playerbase is like over 90% competitive players?
"I do not particularly know what people mean with casual, spike or whatever. Only rarely have I faced opponents who do not do their best to win in mtg games/matches. I do remember reading an article about Spike-Timmy-Johnny, but that was only wotc drivel like many other bullshit things/articles they put out on the mothership."
Casual players usually like to enjoy themselves. They are usually having fun by playing the game, brewing etc and do not really care that much about winning. Those are players that often like those things like Helvault, building paper Thopters, etc. Those players can attend sanctioned play but are rarely placing well, because they do not tend to play the best decks and even if they play well, they simply do not put 'win' before 'play'. Those players are actually usually older than your average spike player and earn stores in general way more money. (on modo that's a whole different story I'd say?)
"I agree that prereleases were even better before when people didnt know cards in advance, but still today it is event number2 (probably shared with limited GPs) behind the PT itself."
People have different opinions about this. I never cared for prerelease nor PT. So you have to understand that what wotc does is actually based on what the majority wants and I can easily understand why they would decide to scrap the Prerelease on MODO. At least among the players I know and talk to, we all wished for prereleases not to exist. In some of the surveys around BFZ wotc was asking many questions about those and I also think that they got similar results. They are interested in players that attend the events, play a lot, spend a lot of money and it is possible that such group of players has a similar point of view on prerelease (not being necessary).
People are sheep in general, but if you are looking at modo players you can't really say that we are sheep. I may be wrong but what I see is that magic online is actually full of players that are more on the competitive spectrum. They test, they play a lot, they want to win and they are interested in EV.
Those players know what they want and those players won't easily get swayed. We are very difficult to please (modo players).
tl;dr
WotC does what they think is the best while keeping the majority of a group that earns them the most money content. In the case of Magic Online it is hardly the casual player (they will rather do something for those that enter many events - and those are primarily competitive players), but in paper Magic it is the casual player.
xger: Competitive Magic players find fun somewhere be it in winning or playing the game. Many competitive players more of ... use Magic as a means to satisfy their 'winning' needs. They do not understand that some players play because they find the actual game fun and do not mind losing. It's not like they would forget that playing the game is fun.
That there are realities(truths) involved in wotc articles is unavoidable, because if there were none people would discard them right away.
"It is not a trite marketing tool because the community has largely adopted the terminology and accepts the meanings (because they are pretty apt.)"
People are sheep and can be led to almost anything, especially the younger ones/teenagers.
The sole motivator for such articles is to make more money, and all the lies that they (feel/think they) can include to make more money they will include. Period.
Counterpoint, opening packs is super fun :D
Opening packs is insane, imho. People do it and sometimes get lucky but it is really just a big lottery ticket. Fun times but not sane.
How different is that from packs though (even in paper, now that most of a box's value is concentrated in Masterpieces)? As I address in the article, ever since the chests became tradable, chests are being opened by two groups: new players who don't know any better and people who can get enough chests to mitigate some of the variance. Wizards biasing the packs towards lands and flashy cards helps the first group, and the second group gets a better deal with Play Points (which also helps with the variance). Of course, the real boon for chests will occur whenever the commons/uncommons get value (aka whenever crafting happens--that might be years away though).
The main problem with Chests is they are a feel bad moment almost every time. Almost Every time. In other words, don't open them.
@Scrounging Bandar: Soon we will be seeing comments on YouTube like: "Did anyone else find themselves watching this video about a cat monkey because of Tribal Evaluation?" :)
"Whoa, is it me, or did Metallic Mimic just blow Adaptive Automaton out of the water?"
Maybe but it's worth bearing in mind that the Mimic is an absolutely terrible late-game top-deck where the Automaton can be just the buff you need to swing for lethal or break through a board-stall or whatever. Of course, the real question is "why not both?"
Good, enthusiastic write-up. Congrats to our champion!
well the pack-per-win swiss queue that is the ancestor of single game leagues had a strictly worse payout for years.
I can certainly look at that, though the feedback I have been getting is people would prefer me to go more in depth on the picks and summarise the games more (rather than go into detail on it).
Apropos, given the Chinese new year.
Congratulations, Kasparadi!
Except for the part where you knocked me out in round 1...
I definitely feel once you committed to white and was open the picks made themselves so not much to say there.
16 would have been my pick. In the future would you be willing to detail your starting hand a bit more? Especially in this aggro deck it might very well have been some good mulligans opportunities that are hard to consider.
I feel you had too many reanimate targets, especially since you didn't have any want to get them from your hand to the graveyard. and some weren't quite what you'd want
Ulamog: Prolly the best as getting him fast just wins games as we saw.
Noxious Gearhulk and Dromoka: I'd run these as they'd be best able to catch you up from falling behind if you had a slow reanimate.
I'd only have played these three.
I wouldn't have played living death, you had no way to reliably discard cards so it's really a clunky five mana reanimate that conflicts with all your removal, plus you could have had acidic slime which I'd really have considered 5 mana as my high curve on actual hardcasts.
Woodfall Primus: Fine but fast reanimation aren't going to beat ulamogg and won't have target. You're more likely going to want noxious or dromoka in a slower reanimate.
Rampaging Baloths: Best you have as catchup, you pick demon over deranged hermit at one point and I'd have taken hermit, easier to cast and the tokens could really buy time. Baloths would be pretty win more.
Rune-scarred: What would you tutor for? If you got a entomb/exhume start you'd never pick him and if you hardcast him you might be so far behind you'd probably have to tutor for removal which is already a bad spot.
As for picks, I'd have at least considered forbid it give you a way to discard from hand and in reanimate entomb/buried are great but having reanimate targets in hand are just dead cards without an out which I think crippled your consistency. Cloudgoat ranger is at 5 mana and makes creature which are great reanimate targets since they play two roles as being great early and can salvage a slow start.
Deluge would have been better.
I feel you don't prioritize fixing enough as Baloths wasn't needed and temple or confluence would have given you some mana consistency.
Lastly, you should have taken thoughtseize over dromoka. Weird but it lets you target yourself to discard to grave, and you had plenty of fattys to reanimate at that point regardless of how good dromoka is, which would be more likely to wheel.
I think that prize structure for the Single Game Legaue was a mistake. Regardless of how the actual value works out when you add the cards opened, seeing that the absolute best prize you can win is the entry fee back viscerally feels like a rip off. It's just a very bad first impression to launch a new tournament structure with and would it really have been too much for the top prize to be 150 points or 120 points and a Treasure Chest or something?
"Pro Tour Team 'Roosters' Revealed:" Easily my favorite typo ever. Seriously, I want someone to draw each team's rooster mascot for us!!
Yeah, I kinda mentioned the fliers in passing at the end of the blue section, though I could have mentioned how Hinterland Drake looks better than the typical Cloud Elemental. I don't know how great Aether Swooper is if you aren't heavy into energy (though it's fine without it). I do have to stop at some point though--one of my goals has been to try and write more-concisely, and that unfortunately means some cards will be left out. Thanks for the feedback though :)
Though you touched on Wind-Kin Raiders, blue has some good cheap flyers. Aether Swooper, Skyship Plunderer and Hinterland Drake are all better than they look, and I have gotten some good wins off the back of a swarm of cheap flyers.
MtgO traffic is easy to estimate with the right tools/knowledge.
This was a good look for what to expect in the future. Thank you!
I love the complete lack of sources. The kind of details you are listing are not publicly known. It's also easy to dispute one of those--seven years ago MTGO had a hard cap on the number of players that could be online. So there is no way MTGO had 5 times the number of players when that cap was less than is in the friendly league alone.
Cant be bothered with more discussion apart from saying this;
Paper estimate is hard but something like 7 million players worldwide who purchase for more than 30 dollars per month.
MtgO = 20 thousand players today(that generate traffic today). At least 10k of them are or have been 1900 elo rating capacities, which means pretty good.
MtgO is abysmal compared to paper - but catches money from the individual customer much faster.
MtgO had 5 times the players 7 years ago, mtgo dwindles because of poor management.
People who are on the PT or try to get there play A LOT of mtgo.
And you write as though the only method to have fun in Magic is to win.
"Only rarely have I faced opponents who do not do their best to win in mtg games/matches." This, your tone, and your statements all imply that you believe all players only have fun through winning, and therefore prereleases are useless. Then, you use your anecdotes to explain your point.
If my writing lead to you believe I think that fun and winning are mutually exclusive, perhaps I should have been more careful. I am simply stating that having fun does not necessarily include a requirement to win. You can have fun and not win. You can win and not have fun. You can win and have fun.
As to your comments regarding your negativity toward Wizards--of course they want to make money. But if you interact with them, you'll see that they also want to make a great game. Given your statements and tone though, perhaps you should just stop doing business with any company that wants to make money, since you seem to indicate they are all out to get us.
To the contrary, I think a lot of players do forget that most players play Magic because it is fun. I would be shocked if any less than 99.999% of players started playing Magic because it was fun. Some transition to playing to scratch a competitive itch. But, they are in the far minority of the player base.
Each time there is a change to MTGO, there is a subset of players who only focus on the EV. But look at some of the lower EV events on MTGO--particularly the friendly sealed league. If you add 2 packs, it has the worst EV. Yet, that is the most popular league. I would be surprised if even half of the MTGO players out there are the hyper competitive EV spike types. It seems reasonable to believe that they are overrepresented on MTGO, but people so often forget the casual players that play MTGO.
I think a lot more competitive players play because the game is fun--how many draft a cube afterward or play variants or EDH? This is what I think pre-releases epitomize. The focus of a prerelease is the cards and the fun of a new set. I'd wager that plenty of competitive players play in prereleases because they are fun.
Well one thing is certain. WotC does all what they can to earn money. On the other hand they also try to give certain target groups of players (TOs/Judges) what they want.
"Prizes are a factor, but the more important factor is prestige."
Yes. But what is the prestige?
Wizards of the Coast would say 'make it a good experience for the players'. Give prizes for those that come in cosplay, buy a pizza, do some kind of achievements based game... whatever ... that will make the event remarkable in some way for players. While the casual player should be the most valued. Casual player is a player that does not usually attend regular events but stops by to buy packs, from time to time some singles and shows up at more 'casual' events like prerelease or game day. At all the WotC conferences I've been we were told 'sell the experience' a zillion times. Our LGSs obviously do not listen...but well what they can do if the playerbase is like over 90% competitive players?
"I do not particularly know what people mean with casual, spike or whatever. Only rarely have I faced opponents who do not do their best to win in mtg games/matches. I do remember reading an article about Spike-Timmy-Johnny, but that was only wotc drivel like many other bullshit things/articles they put out on the mothership."
Casual players usually like to enjoy themselves. They are usually having fun by playing the game, brewing etc and do not really care that much about winning. Those are players that often like those things like Helvault, building paper Thopters, etc. Those players can attend sanctioned play but are rarely placing well, because they do not tend to play the best decks and even if they play well, they simply do not put 'win' before 'play'. Those players are actually usually older than your average spike player and earn stores in general way more money. (on modo that's a whole different story I'd say?)
"I agree that prereleases were even better before when people didnt know cards in advance, but still today it is event number2 (probably shared with limited GPs) behind the PT itself."
People have different opinions about this. I never cared for prerelease nor PT. So you have to understand that what wotc does is actually based on what the majority wants and I can easily understand why they would decide to scrap the Prerelease on MODO. At least among the players I know and talk to, we all wished for prereleases not to exist. In some of the surveys around BFZ wotc was asking many questions about those and I also think that they got similar results. They are interested in players that attend the events, play a lot, spend a lot of money and it is possible that such group of players has a similar point of view on prerelease (not being necessary).
People are sheep in general, but if you are looking at modo players you can't really say that we are sheep. I may be wrong but what I see is that magic online is actually full of players that are more on the competitive spectrum. They test, they play a lot, they want to win and they are interested in EV.
Those players know what they want and those players won't easily get swayed. We are very difficult to please (modo players).
tl;dr
WotC does what they think is the best while keeping the majority of a group that earns them the most money content. In the case of Magic Online it is hardly the casual player (they will rather do something for those that enter many events - and those are primarily competitive players), but in paper Magic it is the casual player.
xger: Competitive Magic players find fun somewhere be it in winning or playing the game. Many competitive players more of ... use Magic as a means to satisfy their 'winning' needs. They do not understand that some players play because they find the actual game fun and do not mind losing. It's not like they would forget that playing the game is fun.
That there are realities(truths) involved in wotc articles is unavoidable, because if there were none people would discard them right away.
"It is not a trite marketing tool because the community has largely adopted the terminology and accepts the meanings (because they are pretty apt.)"
People are sheep and can be led to almost anything, especially the younger ones/teenagers.
The sole motivator for such articles is to make more money, and all the lies that they (feel/think they) can include to make more money they will include. Period.