Balance and friends: I didn't include them because they aren't used as sweepers, they're used as combo pieces in strategies where you have to set your board accordingly (usually by sacrificing your own permanents) before even casting them. Balance and Wrath of God sometimes accomplish the same thing, but aren't the same type of card.
Death Cloud: Didn't make the cut. It doesn't get used primarily as sweeper (just like Balance, it's more of a build-around-me card) and it doesn't guarantee at all times a sweep of at least a specific subclass of affected permanents (Infest or Slagstorm certainly leave permanent untouched, but they guarantee the sweeping of their chosen subclasses: all creatures with toughness 2, and non-indestructible non-protected non-regenerating creatures with toughness 3, respectively).
Terminus and (as mentioned from Facebook) Hallowed Burial: The tuck effects slipped my mind entirely. My bad. For what it's worth I added them as 11th and 12th mono-white sweeper. Votes already cast can be changed at any time, anyway.
I just meant that in the Dailies I play, the Vintage 3 round time-wasters, the cheap price on power has meant an influx of new players. So it looks as if it worked on the surface.
Having players that play for free makes good sense for Wizards. It gives players something to strive for and while striving for it those players spend money.
The last information we had is that MTGO was half the revenue. The investor calls give no indication that Hasbro or Wizards views this as throwing good money after bad as you suggest.
One thing I've heard people speculate about is: how soon will it be before WOTC/Hasbro decides to milk every last dollar from the cash cow prior to pulling the plug? Yeah, I'm sure they make money off MTGO but the player base is not what it once was and money has to be pumped into the system to keep things up and running.
At what point do they say it's just not worth keeping the platform going and abandon ship?
Does anyone really expect MTGO to last forever?
When I wrote my first article about workshop decks, I misclassified Martello Shops as Workshop Prison, when it is in fact considered Workshop Aggro. The thing is, Martello in particular leans much more heavily toward Prison than say Affinity builds or "FroBots" with it's porcelain legionnaire.
I like to think of the mana-denial cards as proactive counterspells. Instead of stopping a spell when it it is cast, they make it impossible to cast in the first place. Tanglewire is like a Time Walk, as it basically gives you an extra turn by negating your opponent's turn.
The Time Walk analogy was used in the description of Aggro Shops that I read. While prison decks try to establish a hard lock prior to closing out a game, the Aggro decks will just try to keep up the pressure while using the mana-taxing cards as a set of Time Walks.
While I was playing Shops, the games I lost were sometimes due to not being able to win fast enough and an opponent would barely outlast my lock pieces, leading to them "breaking out of prison".
But that's not the only problem. The EV of the DEs has gonne from + to - and it was a drastic reduction. That's another factor that makes me not want to play.
I can play for free right now with the play points that were on my system from the conversion from phantom points. Every time the Vintage DE's start, I just lose interest and go do something else.
This is what I've been saying. But all they've done is made one vague statement about using them for something else at some point. This means that they absolutely do not have to do anything at all.
As far as I can tell, they're viewing this as a success. So this is going to be the way the game is from now on. Awesome.
I haven't played a MTGO match since play points were announced. Part of me wants to log on and buy a bunch of singles for speculation later, as I do not believe the current form of play points will be allowed to continue longer than 4 - 6 months.
PP would be less horrible if you could trade them between accounts you own and redeem them for store credit. For example, if I could use 250 play points to pay for the $25 fee on set redemption, I'd be all about play points.
MTGO has always been profitable, despite having DEs that cost 6 tix paying 6 packs to 3-1s and 13 packs to 4-0s, having leagues, having Momir DEs every day, having $5 redemption, having better release events, etc. Yes, many more people go infinite on mtgo than irl but don't forget that irl has many more costs. More taxes, printing and shipping costs, having actual stores run the events and paying people so it is able to do so, etc. And even if more people are able to go infinite, there are many more who don't and keep putting money in the system. Also, tix can only be bought on the store.
MTGO has been getting worse and worse and people still put up with it because magic is a great game. However, this last change is a big deal to me. I'm not saying I won't play anymore, but I'll reduce the number of events very drastically.
i have always thought cards on mtgo cost less specifically because of how easy it is has been for some people to "go infinite".
my question is: why do we have any expectation whatsoever that a company who needs profit to *pay* employees could ever allow players to "play for free" on a consistent basis... and still be able to maintain a payroll?
i admit that i am not that familiar with the paper card economy, but i am going to take a WILD WILD CRAZY stab and guess maybe the top 2% of players in paper irl can consistently "play for free" even if they win ALL THE TIME.
arent we sort of saying "hey we all want to win cards for free"... then complaining the cards are worthless when there are 2 gajillion foil vma underground seas with a crappy text background.
yes, its not as good as before, but i feel as though everyone is just stomping their feet and not being realistic. i think mtgo is eons better than paper irl for so many reasons, no matter what they charge.
Its probably more about the compression rate. Native wmps for example are huge. Over an hour sounds like multi gigs. Totally within normal range for uncompressed video.
Update: I've added two more basic lands to the deck to make it better against Workshop decks, I did some testing with this list with only 14 lands and had a lot of trouble with Shops.
Thanks for the segment about the Community Cup. I agree with what you guys said, to say the least. I mentioned this in my article this week, but a MTGOCC chosen by vote makes everyone feel like they have a say in there team. It also makes all the hard-working people busting their hides week in and week out feel like MAYBE they could "win the lottery" and have a chance at participating.
This year, the I feel like myself and many, many others are completely disenfranchised from this event.
I wish everyone on the team well, they're all great people. Congrats to them for being chosen. I might have even voted for them. But I wish I could have voted for someone who was a known eternal-format player.
Balance and friends: I didn't include them because they aren't used as sweepers, they're used as combo pieces in strategies where you have to set your board accordingly (usually by sacrificing your own permanents) before even casting them. Balance and Wrath of God sometimes accomplish the same thing, but aren't the same type of card.
Death Cloud: Didn't make the cut. It doesn't get used primarily as sweeper (just like Balance, it's more of a build-around-me card) and it doesn't guarantee at all times a sweep of at least a specific subclass of affected permanents (Infest or Slagstorm certainly leave permanent untouched, but they guarantee the sweeping of their chosen subclasses: all creatures with toughness 2, and non-indestructible non-protected non-regenerating creatures with toughness 3, respectively).
Terminus and (as mentioned from Facebook) Hallowed Burial: The tuck effects slipped my mind entirely. My bad. For what it's worth I added them as 11th and 12th mono-white sweeper. Votes already cast can be changed at any time, anyway.
I just meant that in the Dailies I play, the Vintage 3 round time-wasters, the cheap price on power has meant an influx of new players. So it looks as if it worked on the surface.
Exactly! Not only there are players you play for free and even profit but there are many more who chase that dream and don't quite get there.
I know. And mtgo has way less of those expenses than real life.
Having players that play for free makes good sense for Wizards. It gives players something to strive for and while striving for it those players spend money.
The last information we had is that MTGO was half the revenue. The investor calls give no indication that Hasbro or Wizards views this as throwing good money after bad as you suggest.
Where do you see them viewing this as a success already? All I've seen is a number of comments that they will monitor and adjust...
No Terminus, Balance, Balancing Act, Death Cloud or Restore Balance?
Forever? No. Longer than me? Yes.
One thing I've heard people speculate about is: how soon will it be before WOTC/Hasbro decides to milk every last dollar from the cash cow prior to pulling the plug? Yeah, I'm sure they make money off MTGO but the player base is not what it once was and money has to be pumped into the system to keep things up and running.
At what point do they say it's just not worth keeping the platform going and abandon ship?
Does anyone really expect MTGO to last forever?
Profit is all the left over $ after all expenses have been paid, including labor costs.
When I wrote my first article about workshop decks, I misclassified Martello Shops as Workshop Prison, when it is in fact considered Workshop Aggro. The thing is, Martello in particular leans much more heavily toward Prison than say Affinity builds or "FroBots" with it's porcelain legionnaire.
I like to think of the mana-denial cards as proactive counterspells. Instead of stopping a spell when it it is cast, they make it impossible to cast in the first place. Tanglewire is like a Time Walk, as it basically gives you an extra turn by negating your opponent's turn.
The Time Walk analogy was used in the description of Aggro Shops that I read. While prison decks try to establish a hard lock prior to closing out a game, the Aggro decks will just try to keep up the pressure while using the mana-taxing cards as a set of Time Walks.
While I was playing Shops, the games I lost were sometimes due to not being able to win fast enough and an opponent would barely outlast my lock pieces, leading to them "breaking out of prison".
Keep up the good work!
But that's not the only problem. The EV of the DEs has gonne from + to - and it was a drastic reduction. That's another factor that makes me not want to play.
I have over 500 PPs because I had a lot of phantom points from playing Cube. These new Dailies still haven't made me want to use them.
I can play for free right now with the play points that were on my system from the conversion from phantom points. Every time the Vintage DE's start, I just lose interest and go do something else.
This is what I've been saying. But all they've done is made one vague statement about using them for something else at some point. This means that they absolutely do not have to do anything at all.
As far as I can tell, they're viewing this as a success. So this is going to be the way the game is from now on. Awesome.
I haven't played a MTGO match since play points were announced. Part of me wants to log on and buy a bunch of singles for speculation later, as I do not believe the current form of play points will be allowed to continue longer than 4 - 6 months.
PP would be less horrible if you could trade them between accounts you own and redeem them for store credit. For example, if I could use 250 play points to pay for the $25 fee on set redemption, I'd be all about play points.
MTGO has always been profitable, despite having DEs that cost 6 tix paying 6 packs to 3-1s and 13 packs to 4-0s, having leagues, having Momir DEs every day, having $5 redemption, having better release events, etc. Yes, many more people go infinite on mtgo than irl but don't forget that irl has many more costs. More taxes, printing and shipping costs, having actual stores run the events and paying people so it is able to do so, etc. And even if more people are able to go infinite, there are many more who don't and keep putting money in the system. Also, tix can only be bought on the store.
MTGO has been getting worse and worse and people still put up with it because magic is a great game. However, this last change is a big deal to me. I'm not saying I won't play anymore, but I'll reduce the number of events very drastically.
i have always thought cards on mtgo cost less specifically because of how easy it is has been for some people to "go infinite".
my question is: why do we have any expectation whatsoever that a company who needs profit to *pay* employees could ever allow players to "play for free" on a consistent basis... and still be able to maintain a payroll?
i admit that i am not that familiar with the paper card economy, but i am going to take a WILD WILD CRAZY stab and guess maybe the top 2% of players in paper irl can consistently "play for free" even if they win ALL THE TIME.
arent we sort of saying "hey we all want to win cards for free"... then complaining the cards are worthless when there are 2 gajillion foil vma underground seas with a crappy text background.
yes, its not as good as before, but i feel as though everyone is just stomping their feet and not being realistic. i think mtgo is eons better than paper irl for so many reasons, no matter what they charge.
jason
Its probably more about the compression rate. Native wmps for example are huge. Over an hour sounds like multi gigs. Totally within normal range for uncompressed video.
What kind of connection do you have? That's certainly odd.
So lucky! It takes me over an hour to upload a video to YouTube.
Update: I've added two more basic lands to the deck to make it better against Workshop decks, I did some testing with this list with only 14 lands and had a lot of trouble with Shops.
Thanks for the segment about the Community Cup. I agree with what you guys said, to say the least. I mentioned this in my article this week, but a MTGOCC chosen by vote makes everyone feel like they have a say in there team. It also makes all the hard-working people busting their hides week in and week out feel like MAYBE they could "win the lottery" and have a chance at participating.
This year, the I feel like myself and many, many others are completely disenfranchised from this event.
I wish everyone on the team well, they're all great people. Congrats to them for being chosen. I might have even voted for them. But I wish I could have voted for someone who was a known eternal-format player.
five minutes maybe, if I had to guess.