Someone other than me played Kobolds. The deck was already playing white, Enlightned Tutor might have helped it to be a little more consistent (assuming Golden_Lin has or can afford them).
1) When you bring up the enlarged card pictures, can you keep them on a couple more seconds? I don't always remember what each card does (which I suppose is the reason you enlarge the pictures to begin with), but I often have to go back and freeze frame to be able to read enough text to get them.
2) Please please please record some more flashback drafts!
I think it is very simple if you think of it as adding one more boolean as opposed to one more area. The boolean is as follows: "Is this player the monarch?" If value=yes then all other players must be no. Then the question becomes, when to check for it. And the answer to that is after each player's combat step ends.
Then you can do all your other logic based on that boolean. It is a bit of a trick to insert into disorganized code something new but it isn't essentially all that complex in and of itself.
Yeah, I know making it an emblem is technically a rules change, but I don't know what functional rules change it would be (other than violating the "emblems are only for planeswalkers" heuristic). I mean, you can counter it with a "counter target colorless ability" card I'm sure, and they almost certainly won't make emblem-specific cards (counter target ability from an emblem). Hopefully Palace Jailer opens their eyes, as it certainly opened mine (I thought Throne of the High City would have been the card).
Thankfully nothing I talked about appears to be wrong (only Avenger of Zendikar isn't in that post), though it continues the trend of WotC not knowing how to present information well.
Yeah, I think monarch is going to be incredibly hard for MTGO to add due to it's rules. I am not sure how many triggered abilities exist in the game that do not have a source, but monarch currently has two triggered abilities, and both of them have no source. I don't believe that it is as simple as making an emblem in the command zone, because I think that involves changing the rules of monarch as they are now.
Thanks for the compliment! I hate how MTGO doesn't completely line up with paper, but hopefully Palace Jailer's time in the spotlight forces the MTGO team to put some effort into making Monarch work. (and that one of the "junk" slot can eventually be replaced with interesting new old junk--sadly I think a lot of that might be predicated on art rights for old cards)
Very informative article! Shame to see Queen Marchesa omitted, but that added value is hard to ignore. Now with the ban of Peregrine Drake, I might actually que up in some pauper leagues.
I think the end result is that the vast majority of treasure chests will end up in the hands of bots which is a good thing in terms of increasing the supply of hard to find cards, but kind of removes the "excitement of opening something sweet".
For the average player who earns a couple TCs a week, even though the EV is good, the variance is too high making it very risky to open them. However, if you manage to get your hands on enough of them, the risk is mitigated and you should recoup all your value. Only bots can realistically process that volume of TCs. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that for the time being bots will gladly buy your TCs at a reasonable price making it even less likely that the average player will bother keeping them. Eventually, enough TCs will be opened and the market could get flooded at which point WOTC will have to figure something else out, but as a short term solution, this seems like it will work.
It would be weird to open a booster with a booster inside. A low probability way of going infinte. Anyway, boosters and play points inside a treasure chest would not be needed if you just won the booster straight up. So I dont see it as superior to the old system.
Expeditions are not redeemable. So they could do anything with that slot online. Stick in a P9, it would not matter for the paper game. Maybe expeditions need to be fixed in paper but not online. So you could easily distribute any low supply card in that slot.
I think being able to change the contents is what WOTC was going for with the chest paradigm as opposed to calling them boosters. And how weird would it be if you opened a booster to get more boosters (after the 16th this is what is possible to happen with Treasure Chests.)
I think C/U cards ARE junk cards in the context of anyone opening chests does not need them and they are worthless on the market for the most part. If a card is untradable because of ubiquity that makes it junk imho. C/U are ubiquitous in the extreme. At least with Junk Rares, you might have to track them down to get them for a deck.
Also the curated card list is NOT a list of expeditions. You have cards that will never see print online otherwise (Conspiracy 2, EDH 2016), and cards that are never going to be expeditions (power 9, Force of Will, etc). This is in fact something different.
I am not 100% for treasure chests. I think they have been designed with too much caution (towards the markets) and not enough reward for the opener. The only safe thing to do with them until the EV changes is to sell them and stick someone else with the bad lottery ticket. But that does not mean they can't be good. A bad idea would mean that.
"World peace" is a great idea, but the execution is severely lacking ;)
Treasure chests are a bad idea because they are stickly dominated by the booster pack system. Uncommons and commons are not junk because they can be used in drafting. I dont see what you can do with these chests which could not be done with booster packs. Boosters have expeditions, so no need for curated cards which are just expeditions 2.0.
Sure you can copy the HS feature for junk cards but that does not need to be tied to treasure chests.
Do you think that this execution problem will solve itself when treasure chests become tradeable soon? Or will that change simply cause an effect similar to what happened with the old booster payout system? (ie. the prices of treasure chests will drop because of an oversupply of treasure chests which will be sold to bots for tix). In addition to the issue of flooding the market, there is a significant chance of receiving junk in treasure chests, so I doubt that treasure chests will be worth many tix.
I think that treasure chests will continue to be bad for both drafters and constructed players, because their choice once they receive a payout is either to sell the treasure chests for cheap prices, or to take a gamble and open the treasure chest.
What is worse, since the drafters will not be receiving many boosters in the prize payout, they will be forced to sell their treasure chests for cheap prices if they want to use their winnings to enter more drafts. This, combined with the already significant rake, will chip away at the drafters.
Treasure chests are a great idea, but the execution is severely lacking. I really don't think it's hard to grasp that's what I meant.
And well, if treasure chests can't be executed better than the old system, why even change?
Note that I disagree with what you're saying, by the way. I do think there's a lot of cool stuff they could do with treasure chests, as long as they play it to their game's strenght, much like Hearthstone seems to do. Like I said, commons and uncommons aren't useless junk there because they can be used in card crafting, and this is why this is the system they used. Wizards seems to have copied this common slot without any greater understanding of why this works in HS, and why it just doesn't in MTGO.
Next week we'll have the first attempt at Modern Tribal Wars. The calendar at the bottom of this article isn't up to date on that.
We'll use both the ban list for the DCI Modern format, and the ban list from our Regular Tribal Wars events, including the usual tribe restriction of certain creatures like Progenitus, Griselbrand, Tarmogoyf, and such.
It's not a matter of being too afraid. Sheesh. It's the not-so-bright idea of bring politics into a place where it's mostly likely role is just to divide us. But fine, have it your way - I am so grateful that we were somehow able to endure the biggest, by far, presidential slime in the history of American politics. Thankfully, our first, second amendment rights are *mostly* intact. Now endurance will be equal.
Our American friends rate their Presidents through scholar surveys (in addition to popular polls). In the latest of these, from 2015, Nixon rates better than George W. Bush, and James Buchanan rates worse than Harding, at the bottom. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_U...
I am sad that Wizards could not find time to organize the Eric Hamtastic Friborg Memorial tournament this year.
On a more pleasant note, the Containment Priest will sink in price, now that she has been added to the curated list. Most players who open the Containment Priest will have no use for her because they don't play Vintage or Legacy or Commander, so they will just sell her to bots and the bots will soon be flooded with her.
This applies to any curated card which sees only Vintage, Legacy and (occasional) Commander play. An exception might be cards like True-Name Nemesis, because although it will be added to the curated list, that card is popular in all 3 of those formats (and can be up to a "4-of" in Legacy and Vintage Fish decks). The resilience of Force of Will in the face of treasure chests is a good example of this type of exception.
4 Enlightened Tutor....You mean those?
Someone other than me played Kobolds. The deck was already playing white, Enlightned Tutor might have helped it to be a little more consistent (assuming Golden_Lin has or can afford them).
Do you record a lot of stuff that doesn't end up being published? Doesn't feel weird to talk and then nobody will ever listen what you said? :)
I can't be the only one who missed this announcement
Can do, and can do. :)
Should try my hand at some flashback drafts this weekend. Hopefully they're entertaining enough that I can actually post them.
As a great fan of yours, I have two requests:
1) When you bring up the enlarged card pictures, can you keep them on a couple more seconds? I don't always remember what each card does (which I suppose is the reason you enlarge the pictures to begin with), but I often have to go back and freeze frame to be able to read enough text to get them.
2) Please please please record some more flashback drafts!
I think it is very simple if you think of it as adding one more boolean as opposed to one more area. The boolean is as follows: "Is this player the monarch?" If value=yes then all other players must be no. Then the question becomes, when to check for it. And the answer to that is after each player's combat step ends.
Then you can do all your other logic based on that boolean. It is a bit of a trick to insert into disorganized code something new but it isn't essentially all that complex in and of itself.
Yeah, I know making it an emblem is technically a rules change, but I don't know what functional rules change it would be (other than violating the "emblems are only for planeswalkers" heuristic). I mean, you can counter it with a "counter target colorless ability" card I'm sure, and they almost certainly won't make emblem-specific cards (counter target ability from an emblem). Hopefully Palace Jailer opens their eyes, as it certainly opened mine (I thought Throne of the High City would have been the card).
Hooray, WotC decided to show us all the new arts from the Treasure Chest!
http://wizardsmtgo.tumblr.com/post/153319922559/in-the-latest-magic-onli...
Thankfully nothing I talked about appears to be wrong (only Avenger of Zendikar isn't in that post), though it continues the trend of WotC not knowing how to present information well.
Yeah, I think monarch is going to be incredibly hard for MTGO to add due to it's rules. I am not sure how many triggered abilities exist in the game that do not have a source, but monarch currently has two triggered abilities, and both of them have no source. I don't believe that it is as simple as making an emblem in the command zone, because I think that involves changing the rules of monarch as they are now.
That might be easier to do?
There is a need to focus on the new release. As it would be a nice idea to get through with. - Mark Zokle
Thanks for the compliment! I hate how MTGO doesn't completely line up with paper, but hopefully Palace Jailer's time in the spotlight forces the MTGO team to put some effort into making Monarch work. (and that one of the "junk" slot can eventually be replaced with interesting new old junk--sadly I think a lot of that might be predicated on art rights for old cards)
Very informative article! Shame to see Queen Marchesa omitted, but that added value is hard to ignore. Now with the ban of Peregrine Drake, I might actually que up in some pauper leagues.
I think the end result is that the vast majority of treasure chests will end up in the hands of bots which is a good thing in terms of increasing the supply of hard to find cards, but kind of removes the "excitement of opening something sweet".
For the average player who earns a couple TCs a week, even though the EV is good, the variance is too high making it very risky to open them. However, if you manage to get your hands on enough of them, the risk is mitigated and you should recoup all your value. Only bots can realistically process that volume of TCs. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that for the time being bots will gladly buy your TCs at a reasonable price making it even less likely that the average player will bother keeping them. Eventually, enough TCs will be opened and the market could get flooded at which point WOTC will have to figure something else out, but as a short term solution, this seems like it will work.
I don't think I even played with Starter then...As I recall it was a little scarce.
I smiled because: "I haven't played Starter 1999 since.........1999!"
It would be weird to open a booster with a booster inside. A low probability way of going infinte. Anyway, boosters and play points inside a treasure chest would not be needed if you just won the booster straight up. So I dont see it as superior to the old system.
Expeditions are not redeemable. So they could do anything with that slot online. Stick in a P9, it would not matter for the paper game. Maybe expeditions need to be fixed in paper but not online. So you could easily distribute any low supply card in that slot.
I think being able to change the contents is what WOTC was going for with the chest paradigm as opposed to calling them boosters. And how weird would it be if you opened a booster to get more boosters (after the 16th this is what is possible to happen with Treasure Chests.)
I think C/U cards ARE junk cards in the context of anyone opening chests does not need them and they are worthless on the market for the most part. If a card is untradable because of ubiquity that makes it junk imho. C/U are ubiquitous in the extreme. At least with Junk Rares, you might have to track them down to get them for a deck.
Also the curated card list is NOT a list of expeditions. You have cards that will never see print online otherwise (Conspiracy 2, EDH 2016), and cards that are never going to be expeditions (power 9, Force of Will, etc). This is in fact something different.
I am not 100% for treasure chests. I think they have been designed with too much caution (towards the markets) and not enough reward for the opener. The only safe thing to do with them until the EV changes is to sell them and stick someone else with the bad lottery ticket. But that does not mean they can't be good. A bad idea would mean that.
"World peace" is a great idea, but the execution is severely lacking ;)
Treasure chests are a bad idea because they are stickly dominated by the booster pack system. Uncommons and commons are not junk because they can be used in drafting. I dont see what you can do with these chests which could not be done with booster packs. Boosters have expeditions, so no need for curated cards which are just expeditions 2.0.
Sure you can copy the HS feature for junk cards but that does not need to be tied to treasure chests.
Hi Ricklongo, I agree with your points.
Do you think that this execution problem will solve itself when treasure chests become tradeable soon? Or will that change simply cause an effect similar to what happened with the old booster payout system? (ie. the prices of treasure chests will drop because of an oversupply of treasure chests which will be sold to bots for tix). In addition to the issue of flooding the market, there is a significant chance of receiving junk in treasure chests, so I doubt that treasure chests will be worth many tix.
I think that treasure chests will continue to be bad for both drafters and constructed players, because their choice once they receive a payout is either to sell the treasure chests for cheap prices, or to take a gamble and open the treasure chest.
What is worse, since the drafters will not be receiving many boosters in the prize payout, they will be forced to sell their treasure chests for cheap prices if they want to use their winnings to enter more drafts. This, combined with the already significant rake, will chip away at the drafters.
Treasure chests are a great idea, but the execution is severely lacking. I really don't think it's hard to grasp that's what I meant.
And well, if treasure chests can't be executed better than the old system, why even change?
Note that I disagree with what you're saying, by the way. I do think there's a lot of cool stuff they could do with treasure chests, as long as they play it to their game's strenght, much like Hearthstone seems to do. Like I said, commons and uncommons aren't useless junk there because they can be used in card crafting, and this is why this is the system they used. Wizards seems to have copied this common slot without any greater understanding of why this works in HS, and why it just doesn't in MTGO.
Next week we'll have the first attempt at Modern Tribal Wars. The calendar at the bottom of this article isn't up to date on that.
We'll use both the ban list for the DCI Modern format, and the ban list from our Regular Tribal Wars events, including the usual tribe restriction of certain creatures like Progenitus, Griselbrand, Tarmogoyf, and such.
It's not a matter of being too afraid. Sheesh. It's the not-so-bright idea of bring politics into a place where it's mostly likely role is just to divide us. But fine, have it your way - I am so grateful that we were somehow able to endure the biggest, by far, presidential slime in the history of American politics. Thankfully, our first, second amendment rights are *mostly* intact. Now endurance will be equal.
Our American friends rate their Presidents through scholar surveys (in addition to popular polls). In the latest of these, from 2015, Nixon rates better than George W. Bush, and James Buchanan rates worse than Harding, at the bottom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_U...
I am sad that Wizards could not find time to organize the Eric Hamtastic Friborg Memorial tournament this year.
On a more pleasant note, the Containment Priest will sink in price, now that she has been added to the curated list. Most players who open the Containment Priest will have no use for her because they don't play Vintage or Legacy or Commander, so they will just sell her to bots and the bots will soon be flooded with her.
This applies to any curated card which sees only Vintage, Legacy and (occasional) Commander play. An exception might be cards like True-Name Nemesis, because although it will be added to the curated list, that card is popular in all 3 of those formats (and can be up to a "4-of" in Legacy and Vintage Fish decks). The resilience of Force of Will in the face of treasure chests is a good example of this type of exception.