Huh, I am guessing it was not universal as my friend's account also didn't get one. I wonder what the catch was for those who didn't get one. No announcement aside from the email exists about it.
The content of my email was as follows:
"Hi Telir,
We’ve granted you a Magic Origins Deckbuilder’s Essentials kit to grow your collection, as well as 20 Play Points! With these, you’ll be ready to participate in a new play system we’ve introduced to Magic Online.
There have been some big changes to the way events work on Magic Online over the past few weeks—mainly, the introduction of Play Points. Play Points are a new entry option for most Magic Online events and are awarded as prizes in many Constructed events. If your skills are sharp enough, you can even earn enough Play Points to immediately re-enter into events of the same type—sometimes even two more, depending on the event in question.
If you don’t have the latest version of Magic Online, download the client and play a match or two (if you forgot your password, you can reset it here). The Magic Origins Deckbuilder’s Essentials kit will help get your collection up to speed, and the 20 Play Points will grant entry into a Constructed Two-Player Queue. You might even have more than 20 Play Points waiting for you, as any Phantom Points that were in your account were multiplied by six and turned into Play Points.
If you give the new system a try, let us know what you think by contacting magiconlinefeedback@wizards.com or our Twitter account. If you need help, you can go here for directions on contacting Game Support.
Thank you for playing! We hope to see you on Magic Online.
- The Magic Online Team"
I did not get a deck builders tool kit. If they were tradeable i would have given it away to someone in need, but all I have there are some lovely play points.
Guys, this year's Halloween is in actual Halloween night. No way we skip that. :)
Plus, I like it as Vintage. It gives us a chance to explore Vintage Tribal Wars without Elf, Goblin, Merfolk and Human.
I like the idea of Singleton Underdog. We can replace one of the remaining Underdog events.
One of the key things with the LCPPs is that it isn't just the new cards that are being distributed this way. The key isn't in the Commander cards though (even though stuff like Containment Priest and True-Name Nemesis helps). Instead, look to Conspiracy. Dack Fayden. Stifle. Exploration. And a little card named Misdirection. I'll be honest, Misdirection feels like the perfect card to put in the LCPPs (new art, likely to be in the Legendary Cube), but the price seems like it's too high, especially since it'll be rare (and we don't know if relative rarity of rares/mythics will be respected--more on that in my article coming early next week), and I'm expecting the LCPPs to be massively overprinted, especially compared to the printing of Commander decks (since each TNN directly put $30 in Wizards's pocket, and the ratios will presumably be a lot less, unless Wizards does something crazy like having only one pack for first or something). Then again, there are a lot of rares (and mythics) in the set, and the uncommons generally suck (the quality falls off a lot after Shardless Agent and the new stuff), so maybe the math works. Then again, the massive changes made to the article says Wizards is still doing the math, and the set might not even be final at this point...
I asked essentially this on the MTGO tumblr. Will there be any other way to get the CMD 15 cards. The response was basically, the secondary market. Annoying for me as I've not ever really gotten into cube at all.
Its a non-zero money effort to support leagues. All of the work, and it is clear it is a team of software developers, that has been ongoing for years working on leagues now needs to be amortized across all future leagues. In addition, the development team will need to address bugs.
Furthermore, from an accounting perspective, the cost of developing sets will now be funded to some degree by the income from leagues.
Lastly, there is a lost opportunity cost in the fact that many people who played leagues moved to drafts. Without knowing cost/structure of leagues, there is a possibility that Wizards is competing against itself in having both leagues and drafts. Analysis would need to be made to determine if the participation in leagues comes at a reduced sales to people who moved from drafts to leagues in comparison to players now injecting greater payments to the store to support leagues when they would not have paid for drafts.
Another cost is the potential for a greater need of employee/ORC support for league participants. Errors with leagues could create more refund requests. There has to be staff to review those requests and staff to investigate player complaints about league opponents.
An additional lost opportunity cost for outlying prize award percentages vs. income from participants comes when temporary drafts of old sets are done. If the inordinate prize awards for leagues with under-participation floods the market with extra copies of cards, the secondary market prices will decrease. Thus, when Wizards has a Tempest draft weekend, the impetus for people playing in that event is reduced, lowering direct sales.
Let's take this to the extreme. Wizards decides to run a draft every second. Any slots not filled by players become auto wins for the human player. No draft ever fills up. Instead each draft has 1-2 players that paid the full entry fee, but they both win 8 or 4 packs. So Wizards takes in $4 in tickets for the events for $48 in prize awards. This is effectively what was happening for lots of leagues to a less extreme perspective.
I agree with you. With every bad decision, mtgo doesn't die but it gets worse or "dies a little". Can you imagine how many more players mtgo would have if they did not screw up during the v2 to v3 switch? During the v3 to v4 switch? Stupid bans because there are many bugs and people ask for refund? Turning the only EV+ events into overpriced EV- crap and giving us untradable stuff? And all the other times they screwed up really bad?
We read the wizards article slightly differently. I do not believe the article even hinted that sealed leagues would be around during Battle for Zendikar. Also, the article described constructed leagues as a single deck event.
While the pairing mechanism was a difficult design decision (even pairing vs. rapid play), I am not sure this difficult from a coding/implementation perspective. Furthermore, Chris's article clearly indicates the collection constraint aspects of limited leagues was a significant hurdle which they effectively delayed overcoming by going to constructed leagues.
I actually viewed the announcement very negatively towards gaining access to the leagues that I loved when I started playing online. No
How much does the event cost in server resources to run vs. not having the event run? I suspect the cost is mostly zero, but Pete has not added any evidence to the contrary. If even 20 people (instead of 200) joined at approximately $30 in Sealed entry costs, they're making $600 in entry fees minus what, $1, in server costs compared to the event never having run.
Please explain the opportunity cost for running the event: the players playing in this event have paid full price. Even at discounted entry fees (if possible), it still way outperforms server costs compared to not having run the event.
How much work do you think they will work on the event compared to if they had not run it? I assume zero.
Their expected bottom line? They get to make up numbers now? If they fail to get 10,000 entries, they can call it a loss? I wish I could have such a failed business. I'll happily take the gains or losses for all such events (they will be gains).
It is not disingenuous to represent the costs as $0. The structure is implemented whether they push the start button or not on the more niche events.
Under your theory, they could never run a Vintage or Legacy event since it can never produce the numbers of Standard or Modern. Where are your don't-bother-WotC-will-lose-money comments in response to those petitions?
There is an interesting thing going on today. We each recieved a deckbuilding kit gratis (thats 2 tix! + some junk for most of us who have decent collections but it is really good for casual wanna bes who just started up.) So there are multiple threads here.
On the one hand: WTF no Commander 2015???? Come on WoTC the casual community isn't dead yet. And on the other, they are actively encouraging new players to dip their toes into building decks if only on the shallowest end.
Constructed leagues will be coming soon. I suspect they will be filled partially with people playing with very small collections and perhaps even some of the cards included in the kit. (Swiftspear for example in each one.)
It would be really good to hear why the different pushes/and pulls. Yet again we are left to our own devices to ponder as you do as to their motives and end game.
Come on. Age old canard there. OF COURSE resources cost them. Of course there is an opportunity cost as well and of course they pay in with work on the engine to make sure all the various wheels and cogs work without major mishap. So of course if they do not meet their expected bottom line they will see that as losses. Under performance is a loss in this kind of business. It is disingenuous to represent the costs as $0 for any individual event just because the costs are paid upfront instead of a per basis.
I understand they took in lots of invested player capital, but just what did WotC pony up? How much capital did they spend to fire that event compared to if they hadn't fired that event? I suspect near $0.00. In essence, they profited plenty, though not nearly as much as in larger events.
Is anyone arguing that the WotC accountants should report lost revenue on this and similar events in order to reduce their taxable income? Laughable.
They lost money in the sense that they gave out significantly more in prizes than they took in as entry fees. As the number of players went up, the prizes/entry fees quickly went back in Wizard's favor.
Ah, the typical magic player. They hear that wizards is packing 10$ bills in random packs, and Wizards is scum because they haven't opened one yet.
Another great move by Wizards! Give some people and leave others with nothing!
I didn't get a deck builder's toolkit either.
The phantom points that I had were transformed into play points - it would have been nice if my war marks had done that also.
Huh, I am guessing it was not universal as my friend's account also didn't get one. I wonder what the catch was for those who didn't get one. No announcement aside from the email exists about it.
The content of my email was as follows:
"Hi Telir,
We’ve granted you a Magic Origins Deckbuilder’s Essentials kit to grow your collection, as well as 20 Play Points! With these, you’ll be ready to participate in a new play system we’ve introduced to Magic Online.
There have been some big changes to the way events work on Magic Online over the past few weeks—mainly, the introduction of Play Points. Play Points are a new entry option for most Magic Online events and are awarded as prizes in many Constructed events. If your skills are sharp enough, you can even earn enough Play Points to immediately re-enter into events of the same type—sometimes even two more, depending on the event in question.
If you don’t have the latest version of Magic Online, download the client and play a match or two (if you forgot your password, you can reset it here). The Magic Origins Deckbuilder’s Essentials kit will help get your collection up to speed, and the 20 Play Points will grant entry into a Constructed Two-Player Queue. You might even have more than 20 Play Points waiting for you, as any Phantom Points that were in your account were multiplied by six and turned into Play Points.
If you give the new system a try, let us know what you think by contacting magiconlinefeedback@wizards.com or our Twitter account. If you need help, you can go here for directions on contacting Game Support.
Thank you for playing! We hope to see you on Magic Online.
- The Magic Online Team"
I did not get a deck builders tool kit. If they were tradeable i would have given it away to someone in need, but all I have there are some lovely play points.
It's a point, but I count 50 eligible tribes (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14cwLhWdbhyK2PSgiKQsvO-iCUPB5ZVmj...), most of them should be dirt cheap.
Yeah, it's nice to play a traditional White Weenie deck in Modern.
Look forward to your article.
That sounds like a very narrow window for tribes. Between 20 and 50 members?
Edit: Can't get to a MTGO-capable computer this week. Good luck to everyone playing!
Odd the one I got the notification on is my beta account which I never play on but store excess cards on occasionally.
This seems to be related to activity. On my main account, I got it, but on my storage account (wkich I rarely use), I did not.
Guys, this year's Halloween is in actual Halloween night. No way we skip that. :)
Plus, I like it as Vintage. It gives us a chance to explore Vintage Tribal Wars without Elf, Goblin, Merfolk and Human.
I like the idea of Singleton Underdog. We can replace one of the remaining Underdog events.
One of the key things with the LCPPs is that it isn't just the new cards that are being distributed this way. The key isn't in the Commander cards though (even though stuff like Containment Priest and True-Name Nemesis helps). Instead, look to Conspiracy. Dack Fayden. Stifle. Exploration. And a little card named Misdirection. I'll be honest, Misdirection feels like the perfect card to put in the LCPPs (new art, likely to be in the Legendary Cube), but the price seems like it's too high, especially since it'll be rare (and we don't know if relative rarity of rares/mythics will be respected--more on that in my article coming early next week), and I'm expecting the LCPPs to be massively overprinted, especially compared to the printing of Commander decks (since each TNN directly put $30 in Wizards's pocket, and the ratios will presumably be a lot less, unless Wizards does something crazy like having only one pack for first or something). Then again, there are a lot of rares (and mythics) in the set, and the uncommons generally suck (the quality falls off a lot after Shardless Agent and the new stuff), so maybe the math works. Then again, the massive changes made to the article says Wizards is still doing the math, and the set might not even be final at this point...
I read it the same way. I just really hope that sealed leagues aren't going to be a near decade of "soon"
I asked essentially this on the MTGO tumblr. Will there be any other way to get the CMD 15 cards. The response was basically, the secondary market. Annoying for me as I've not ever really gotten into cube at all.
This argument fails because if all events are treated this way, Wizards should give us everything for pennies.
In a relative sense, the small leagues lost money.
I vote for a themed vs event, or at least some type of theme related to halloween.
Its a non-zero money effort to support leagues. All of the work, and it is clear it is a team of software developers, that has been ongoing for years working on leagues now needs to be amortized across all future leagues. In addition, the development team will need to address bugs.
Furthermore, from an accounting perspective, the cost of developing sets will now be funded to some degree by the income from leagues.
Lastly, there is a lost opportunity cost in the fact that many people who played leagues moved to drafts. Without knowing cost/structure of leagues, there is a possibility that Wizards is competing against itself in having both leagues and drafts. Analysis would need to be made to determine if the participation in leagues comes at a reduced sales to people who moved from drafts to leagues in comparison to players now injecting greater payments to the store to support leagues when they would not have paid for drafts.
Another cost is the potential for a greater need of employee/ORC support for league participants. Errors with leagues could create more refund requests. There has to be staff to review those requests and staff to investigate player complaints about league opponents.
An additional lost opportunity cost for outlying prize award percentages vs. income from participants comes when temporary drafts of old sets are done. If the inordinate prize awards for leagues with under-participation floods the market with extra copies of cards, the secondary market prices will decrease. Thus, when Wizards has a Tempest draft weekend, the impetus for people playing in that event is reduced, lowering direct sales.
Let's take this to the extreme. Wizards decides to run a draft every second. Any slots not filled by players become auto wins for the human player. No draft ever fills up. Instead each draft has 1-2 players that paid the full entry fee, but they both win 8 or 4 packs. So Wizards takes in $4 in tickets for the events for $48 in prize awards. This is effectively what was happening for lots of leagues to a less extreme perspective.
I agree with you. With every bad decision, mtgo doesn't die but it gets worse or "dies a little". Can you imagine how many more players mtgo would have if they did not screw up during the v2 to v3 switch? During the v3 to v4 switch? Stupid bans because there are many bugs and people ask for refund? Turning the only EV+ events into overpriced EV- crap and giving us untradable stuff? And all the other times they screwed up really bad?
We read the wizards article slightly differently. I do not believe the article even hinted that sealed leagues would be around during Battle for Zendikar. Also, the article described constructed leagues as a single deck event.
While the pairing mechanism was a difficult design decision (even pairing vs. rapid play), I am not sure this difficult from a coding/implementation perspective. Furthermore, Chris's article clearly indicates the collection constraint aspects of limited leagues was a significant hurdle which they effectively delayed overcoming by going to constructed leagues.
I actually viewed the announcement very negatively towards gaining access to the leagues that I loved when I started playing online. No
I disagree with all your points.
How much does the event cost in server resources to run vs. not having the event run? I suspect the cost is mostly zero, but Pete has not added any evidence to the contrary. If even 20 people (instead of 200) joined at approximately $30 in Sealed entry costs, they're making $600 in entry fees minus what, $1, in server costs compared to the event never having run.
Please explain the opportunity cost for running the event: the players playing in this event have paid full price. Even at discounted entry fees (if possible), it still way outperforms server costs compared to not having run the event.
How much work do you think they will work on the event compared to if they had not run it? I assume zero.
Their expected bottom line? They get to make up numbers now? If they fail to get 10,000 entries, they can call it a loss? I wish I could have such a failed business. I'll happily take the gains or losses for all such events (they will be gains).
It is not disingenuous to represent the costs as $0. The structure is implemented whether they push the start button or not on the more niche events.
Under your theory, they could never run a Vintage or Legacy event since it can never produce the numbers of Standard or Modern. Where are your don't-bother-WotC-will-lose-money comments in response to those petitions?
There is an interesting thing going on today. We each recieved a deckbuilding kit gratis (thats 2 tix! + some junk for most of us who have decent collections but it is really good for casual wanna bes who just started up.) So there are multiple threads here.
On the one hand: WTF no Commander 2015???? Come on WoTC the casual community isn't dead yet. And on the other, they are actively encouraging new players to dip their toes into building decks if only on the shallowest end.
Constructed leagues will be coming soon. I suspect they will be filled partially with people playing with very small collections and perhaps even some of the cards included in the kit. (Swiftspear for example in each one.)
It would be really good to hear why the different pushes/and pulls. Yet again we are left to our own devices to ponder as you do as to their motives and end game.
Come on. Age old canard there. OF COURSE resources cost them. Of course there is an opportunity cost as well and of course they pay in with work on the engine to make sure all the various wheels and cogs work without major mishap. So of course if they do not meet their expected bottom line they will see that as losses. Under performance is a loss in this kind of business. It is disingenuous to represent the costs as $0 for any individual event just because the costs are paid upfront instead of a per basis.
I understand they took in lots of invested player capital, but just what did WotC pony up? How much capital did they spend to fire that event compared to if they hadn't fired that event? I suspect near $0.00. In essence, they profited plenty, though not nearly as much as in larger events.
Is anyone arguing that the WotC accountants should report lost revenue on this and similar events in order to reduce their taxable income? Laughable.
They lost money in the sense that they gave out significantly more in prizes than they took in as entry fees. As the number of players went up, the prizes/entry fees quickly went back in Wizard's favor.
Good point.