Magic: The Gathering C/D

seems kinda lame tbh

i think it's neat if they use the triggers liberally, otherwise its just a watered down level-up, which is something that should play well but isn't too exciting

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/08142013c

prob just quitting mtgo

am i misunderstanding, or is that saying phantom events will cost 8 tix to enter and will give no prize packs, just credit towards future phantom events?

so what is this now, you can't actually win packs from phantom events? why are we paying the 2 tickets then? (I realize Cube does this, but at least Cube is a super fun, once-in-a-while format)

why is it every time MTGO has something popular that they feel the need to mess it up? it's already a terrible deal for the players.

nope you're not misunderstanding rs

the business types in charge of mtgo are idiots

the only rationale is that they want to try to keep pack prices high, though the drop in pack prices seemed to be directly related to adding an extra $20 to redemption - AVR sat above 3.80 for a long time despite all the phantom sealed queues firing, maybe because they're still only giving out 6 packs for 32 tix total.

having said that, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find that they just have no concept on how the MTGO economy works. mtgo players aren't stupid, nobody's going to play these. even the people who want to won't play them because the queues will never fire.

it seems totally reasonable to believe that they have no concept of how the mtgo economy works or a business plan that goes beyond 'if we charge more money for things, we will make more money'

lol worth

i didn't realize the phantom sealeds were so popular. i only played them if i needed sealed practice for some event because the payouts were so meager.

they do listen to feedback though (see: the ridiculous price point on modern masters events which got lowered to more reasonable numbers after lots of people complained) so if this is a dealbreaker for a lot of people i'd expect to see a change down the line

i dont think these phantom points will last a month. nobody's going to play these. i think they were nice for someone who just wanted to play limited and didn't mind taking an EV hit to do so. the whole "at worst, I'm losing 4 tickets" is pretty appealing.

Something I don't entirely get is that a lot of changes that Wizards makes just get put out there with seemingly no warning, get complaints, and then they fix it. I wonder if they do any kind of polling before making these things public? Maybe they've found that it's easier to make changes and then fix them based on complaints? With certain things like competitive REL rules changes, I can see why players may not have a good understanding of whether they would like the change until they try it out; with other changes like the initial Planeswalker Points system, the negative feedback is immediate and warranted. The way Microsoft is handling complaints on XBox One seems similar.

i know i am an outlier but way back when in the halcyon days of the rtr and gtc sets, i could put in $16 at the start of the week and reasonably expect to play 9 phantom sealeds off that, which was a lot of fun and great for someone like me who was/is learning the basics. at my level it would be a banner week if i got to play 2 drafts out of $16.

pulling the voice of resurgence is awesome though

i think more likely the phantom points will last but the entry fee will get dropped back down to 4 or 5 tickets (or 2 tickets plus a few points). if they get the numbers right, not getting pack payouts isn't even a big deal since you were just going to recycle those into credit towards your next sealed anyway. i think at least half of the idea behind this change is to eliminate a potential source of pack devaluation since that's been hurting them ever since the redemption fees went up, but you can still do that without the 8 ticket moneygrab.

the 8 tix entry is the most alarming part yeah. i liked winning a phantom event and throwing those packs into a draft, it is basically the only way i ever opened any cards, but there is some kind of logic to the prize part of the change i suppose.

i would guess the margins on the phantom events are comparatively too low plus the events themselves were becoming too popular. even recently, rtr block phantom sealed still seem to have been maybe the most frequently firing events.

despite the low value payout

you wonder if their data tracking is sophisticated enough to notice that some people aren't gonna substitute $4 games w/ $12 games, they're just gonna play less / not at all

just getting rid of the 2 tix entry fee would help a lot. you shouldn't be able to win one of these events and not be able to enter another event with the prizes. if they were really worried about pack prices they could just make *that* the entry fee (take in 8 packs, give back 6, simple). or stop gouging people on redemptions. I have a hard time believing that they weren't making a healthy profit on redemptions anyway, unless they've really sank that much into the beta. I dunno, I'm just really hoping Hex or SolForge can at least drive enough MTGO players away to convince them to try maybe giving players what they want, for a change

I already wasn't playing a lot of mtgo but this is probably going to end it for me altogether

yeah i'm kind of hoping that one of these slick new online CCGs that are coming out catches on enough that WotC is forced to get their ass in gear with MTGO. it's a pretty absurd blind spot for a company that's otherwise the best at what they do.

though having 3 different ones all pop up around the same time (solforge, hex, hearthstone) might cause none of them to build a big enough playerbase to challenge magic, i dunno.

I am skeptical since the only people who seem to be interested in those games are the real hardcore Magic players who probably won't quit MTGO 100% anyway. But a digital CCG that's well-designed, cheap, and has a good interface really could have a lot going for it, especially if it takes full advantage of not having a paper equivalent.

some theros cards from the duel deck:

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261_pwe_en_e2e8lkg145.jpg
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261_aac_en_x9nkybjgmj.jpg

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261a_cp_en_q7uyjjsteu.jpg
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261a_oop_en_7vcz9xnf1s.jpg
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261a_sh_en_5zcb5doli4.jpg
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/features/feat261a_dr_en_njemx72mgh.jpg

i like these, am pretty optimistic about this set

Polukarnos seems crazy good. Then again I was pretty excited about Deadbridge Goliath and nobody played it.

Not really crazy about the Heroic ability, seems kinda narrow, but it may get Fight effects played in standard. Either way the 3-spot for Boros seems to be spoken for. I guess we'll have to see what this combos with.

Ordeal of Purphorous seems like a really neat design, hope that it's a cycle.

i think the ordeal is probably part of a cycle yeah. also note that the spell effect is curiously detached from the other trigger, so if there are cards that let you sac enchantments, you can bypass the ordeal and just get the 3 damage right away

hadn't noticed that. definitely seems interesting.
the art in this set looks awesome. I'm usually quite cynical about M:TG's art lately but so far this looks incredible.

Hmm, not feeling much flavor through the mechanics of these cards yet. Maybe the ordeal one. The satyr - am I missing something about why he would sac for mana? Even the flavor text didn't help. Of course, this is just six cards, and I might be the only one who cares about this stuff.

you put a little fire under him and he parties so crazy that you get RRR worth of partying

yeah i doubt these cards are too representational of anything, they're just the ones that fit in the duel decks

Should have just called that dude YOLO xp

hedonist seems like a card for constructed but if they actually made a limited archetype that wants that effect then i'm all ears. i do like that putting Infernal Plunge on a creature now means one fewer unplayable card in draft, that was one of the very few cards in innistrad that was a consistent 14th-pick.

i kind of assume any ritual they'd be willing to print is terrible so i didn't spend any time thinking about that card

howd you end up doing in the premier event yesterday cider?

terrible ritual B

instant
add B to your mana pool

weve gotten a few hints that this set will have a theme of building up your heroes/monsters over time, so maybe it will wind up playable? less unplayable commons definitely = better drafting (something that the developers of M14 seem to have missed)

in other news i lost in the top4 of the standard premier event yesterday:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/5832066 (smh in 4th place is me)

the deck was kind of inconsistent, but it's pretty fun and has some unreal nut draws

also the sideboard was terrible which i immediately fixed after the event (needed some red removal, i lost the semis match to blood baron which i had no outs for)

someone who plays my local fnm has been trying to make that b/g deck work since ravnica so i find it sort of charming that it's finally doing well.

i played some 8-mans yesterday with brad nelson's revamp of junk rites. i kind of really like the deck, it's the deck i've had the most standard success with but it still feels really fragile

i have a win-a-lotus standard tournament on saturday and i still don't really know what i should be playing

if you win the lotus you should only play vintage from now on

haha if i win the lotus i am going to sell it

I think it will be like lord of the rings and you will find it very difficult to give up that power

i have no recommendations for standard now, i started losing with hexproof which is why i swapped decks for the PE

gonna go back to just jamming red aggro until rotation i think and save my tickets

interesting to see that the r/g aggro deck with reckoner is still competing on mtgo while it's fallen out of favor in paper with the Kibler r/g build taking its place.

The new mega game store in Austin is putting up either boxes of Modern Masters or FTV: 20 as prizes for FNM standard this month, so I'm going to try to bag one of those with my version of the r/g deck.

yeah i'm still playing that deck in irl events since it's the only deck i own, and it's still fine. i put 2-3 burning earth in the sideboard and that's the only new change with M14. have considered chandra as a 1-of too.

I've been wondering about chandra in there too since I pulled one in the last draft I entered. It could play a similar role to Domri in terms of card advantage.

I'm also trying to plan out where the deck is going post-rotation. I don't see a good finisher that can step in for Hellrider at the moment.

dunno if you've experienced a standard rotation before, but basically throw everything you know out the window and start over. the go-to aggro deck next season could be white weenie for all we know

I suppose, but I still expect some r/x aggro variation to be competitive since very few cards in the deck are going away and the only crucial one is Hellrider. Compare to something like Jund Midrange where the deck is pretty much going out of existence.

yeah i agree with that, its just important to realize that environments change a lot at rotation. at this time last year, thragtusk, huntmaster, olivia, garruk primal hunter, farseek, and bonfire were all standard-legal an d yet jund midrange was unplayable. this year it's been one of the top decks with that exact same set of cards.

I'm toying with a few potential changes to the r/g deck. Let me know what you think.

• Moving 2 Domri from sideboard to main deck in place of 2 burn spells
• Upping count of Burning Earth in sideboard from 2 to 3
• Adding 1 copy of Mutavault to main deck in place of a spell, would put me at 22 land
• Adding 2 Scavenging Oozes to main deck in place of a couple spells or to the sideboard to swap with Firefist Striker

are you playing a burning-tree version of r/g?

yes