MTGO Legacy questions

[Koby]

Independent variable: # of players
Dependent variable: Difference of Player's take (Boosters won * MSRP) and WotC's rake (# of players * Entry fee)

Boosters won was calculated from a Swiss Triangle after 4 rounds of play for events between 16-128 players, with no draws (as with MTGO). Pair-downs assumed to have gone towards the player with higher points.

[TeenieBopper]

Independent variable: # of players
Dependent variable: Difference of Player's take (Boosters won * MSRP) and WotC's rake (# of players * Entry fee)


Derp. I feel retarded now.

Also, holy fuck. There's a net gain of two tickets per 16 players compared to 44 per 16 for non-VM. That's bonkers. I have no idea how WotC gets away with this shit.

[thecrav]

I have no idea how WotC gets away with this shit.

Most of the money made on MTGO is grinders who aren't losing much, and even if they are, it's worth it for the practice. What other medium can you easily draft several times a day every day?

[troopatroop]

Most of the money made on MTGO is grinders who aren't losing much, and even if they are, it's worth it for the practice. What other medium can you easily draft several times a day every day?

and lose them all, every day.

[kaiserruhsam]

Do we know how ripoffy the prerelease events are, or are we still waiting? Is the best way to get the set really going to be paying tix for (pre)release queues? Or should we be jamming belcher in the 2-mans and quitting once we're ahead?

[Barook]

Derp. I feel retarded now.

Also, holy fuck. There's a net gain of two tickets per 16 players compared to 44 per 16 for non-VM. That's bonkers. I have no idea how WotC gets away with this shit.
It would have been smarter to keep the payout for a 3-1 at 3 packs. It would be still a net loss, but it wouldn't be as severe as this.

My desire to grind QPs for a second Cradle this month is completely gone. I'll finish the last few points for the first one and call it a day.

[BoiledDenim]

Off topic, but, can anyone point me to a link for Cockatrice?

[thecrav]

Off topic, but, can anyone point me to a link for Cockatrice?

http://www.woogerworks.com/

[mishima_kazuya]

Eventually the prizes will switch back to the current set for Legacy and Vintage Constructed events, iirc.

Assuming that the noodle heads at WoTC do not change the scheduled prizes, what is the logistics needed to get a player organized Legacy event?
It is that option I suggested or play 8-mans.

[Koby]

Eventually the prizes will switch back to the current set for Legacy and Vintage Constructed events, iirc.

Assuming that the noodle heads at WoTC do not change the scheduled prizes, what is the logistics needed to get a player organized Legacy event?
It is that option I suggested or play 8-mans.

If you want to run player run events, you just organize Casual matches reporting back to you/PTO. I think that's what the Pauper community ran just to have events with not much prizing.

[Barook]

There are actually idiots who buy VMA booster for 10-11 tix right now.

And people farm the 2/8-man queues like madmen to the point where you sometimes couldn't join the 2-mans because there seems to be some kind of max limit.

This is hilarious.

[Undomian]

They actually added a good daily time for people living on the East coast... I might have to get into MTGO now.

[Higgs]

Are there any good streamers streaming VMA?

[Barook]

Are there any good streamers streaming VMA?
Not yet, since you can only collect VMA boosters for now. The prerelease events start tomorrow.

What you can do, however, is farm the 2-man and 8-mans for insane value right now since every scrub wants to have a piece of the cake. That probably works until the prelease starts.

[Higgs]

My in-laws will be in town from tomorrow so I can't do the drafts and I don't have a collection online so I can't do the queues. That's why I'm looking for some entertaining streams to watch when I can find some time :)

[zinedrei]

VMA packs are around 10 - 11 now and will surely go down when pre release starts.

is there a possiblity that they will go lower than the store price of 7 tix during pre release?
like 6 perhaps from a bot or human?

im looking to join some limited queues and hoping i can buy cheaper product elsewhere instead of paying 25 tix for a draft pod or 45 for sealed.

tia...

[thecrav]

I'd guess most people with VM packs will be using them to reup in another event until the cash runs out :/

[Barook]

Considering the price of prerelease event packs is 7.5 tix if you include the entry fee, the prices will fall.

The better question whether or not it's worth it to join such an event, especially when you have absolutely no Limited experience, like me.

I've made over 150 tix with selling VMA boosters in the last two days, since I'm not a gambler and I'm not too keen on wasting them. One of the guys who bought two boosters from me pulled a Mox Sapphire, but considering how much trash could be opened, it didn't seem worth the risk, at least not at a price of 10 tix/booster.

[ubernostrum]

After two VMA drafts in a row losing to mono-red, decided to find a more reliable way of winning packs by playing some Legacy.

And... wow, there's a lot of people playing Dredge now the price of LED has crashed. As far as I know most of the rest of the deck is pretty cheap; could we be seeing a larger shift toward Dredge in the MTGO metagame from this flood of low-price LEDs?

[Barook]

After two VMA drafts in a row losing to mono-red, decided to find a more reliable way of winning packs by playing some Legacy.

And... wow, there's a lot of people playing Dredge now the price of LED has crashed. As far as I know most of the rest of the deck is pretty cheap; could we be seeing a larger shift toward Dredge in the MTGO metagame from this flood of low-price LEDs?
Legacy Dailys aren't that great either, now that the pack prices have crashed and 3-1s only pay out two packs each.

We saw lots of Burn while the VMA Gold Rush was in place since you can be a drooling idiot and still place well with it. I doubt the same applies to Dredge it's easily beaten by a decent amount of GY hate and people WILL run it if Dredge is relevant.

On a different note:
Can we make a list of well-known players that play on MODO? It's always interesting to play against somebody and hear afterwards "Wait, that was him?".

I'll start with people who I know out of my head:

oarsman - Joe Lossett
Lejay - Jean-Mary Accart
Julian23 - Julian Knab
MichaelBonde - Michael Bonde (?)
FFfreaK - Brad Nelson
Sunyveil - Dayv Doberne
Koby - Jacob Kory
strong sad - Todd Anderson

Feel free to add further names to the list.

[Dice_Box]

Edit. Read that wrong.

[mishima_kazuya]

I recently q'd for pt honolulu and top 8 a few scg opens, does that count? Also have extensive player profile on mtgo-stats and mtggoldfisg :P

[cab0747]

They actually added a good daily time for people living on the East coast... I might have to get into MTGO now.

I am very excited about this.

Those 11pm start times made it nearly impossible for anyone who had to be up early to participate in these events.

Since I haven;t been able to play paper Legacy nearly as much as I would like, the new time(s) for these events is very exciting.

[Myelectronicdays]

What time is the new daily? I'm in a work meeting.. hook me up haha

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Barook]

What time is the new daily? I'm in a work meeting.. hook me up haha

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
The one in a bit less than 5 hours.

[Dragonslayer_90]

As I said in another post, my friend has offered to lend me a deck to play legacy on MTGO so I'm going to create an account pretty soon. I'm also strongly considering buying into legacy online, making online versions of the few decks I play in paper. So I'd like to ask my those who actually play legacy on modo: Is it worth it? How often do legacy dailies fire? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of playing legacy on modo?

[Barook]

As I said in another post, my friend has offered to lend me a deck to play legacy on MTGO so I'm going to create an account pretty soon. I'm also strongly considering buying into legacy online, making online versions of the few decks I play in paper. So I'd like to ask my those who actually play legacy on modo: Is it worth it? How often do legacy dailies fire? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of playing legacy on modo?
There are 4 Daily events a day, with the exception of Wednesday due to downtime. All of them fire normally. Besides, there are also the options for 8-man and 2-man queues (which are bad value normally).

It's certainly worth it if you want to play Magic regularly and without having to travel. The meta is also very competitive, which in turn is going to make you a better player.

The downside? MODO sucks - hard. The client is ass and is going to be forcefully replaced by the current Beta client which is a even worse PoS than the current one once M15 comes around.

[Dragonslayer_90]

There are 4 Daily events a day, with the exception of Wednesday due to downtime. All of them fire normally. Besides, there are also the options for 8-man and 2-man queues (which are bad value normally).

It's certainly worth it if you want to play Magic regularly and without having to travel. The meta is also very competitive, which in turn is going to make you a better player.

The downside? MODO sucks - hard. The client is ass and is going to be forcefully replaced by the current Beta client which is a even worse PoS than the current one once M15 comes around.

Thank you so much for the info Barook! I certainly do want to play legacy more regularly than I do at the moment. With the places I'm living in most of the time it's hard to play serious legacy more than once a week. I also want to play with competitive legacy players to become better myself. I think the deciding factor will be how much I can tolerate the shittiness of modo, which I will decide via playing whatever my friend can lend me.

[Arianeira]

With the release of Vintage Masters is probably the best time to buy in to legacy on MTGO. I just bought in. Force of Will, Lion's Eye Diamond and dual lands are the cheapest they been since the release of masters editions. Some things are still expensive like Wasteland, Tarmogoyf and Liliana but you can play decks without those.

The MTGO interface is annoying and you have to be really careful not to misclick or not hit F2 for next phase too many times. The chess clock like timer takes a bit getting used to you have to learn to be proficient with the clunky the interface and play fast. But it is really nice to be able to play anytime from home.

[[SLAYER]chaos]

Made the plunge and bought TES. As much as the client sucks it's really nice to have constant access to games any time of day. Does the source still have a team online? I remember that was a thing a while ago.

Also, should I pick some of the other VMA staples right now or will forces/duals/vintage cards remain relatively low for a while?

[Barook]

There is a Source clan, but sadly, it isn't much more than a name tag.

Since people keep drafting, I would still wait for a bit. Somebody on the Manadrain speculated that next week should be low point, based on past sets, but who knows.

[menace13]

The MTGO interface is annoying and you have to be really careful not to misclick or not hit F2 for next phase too many times. The chess clock like timer takes a bit getting used to you have to learn to be proficient with the clunky the interface and play fast. But it is really nice to be able to play anytime from home.
F4 is an efficient time saving tool. It passes priority and by-passes all phases until either one of 3 conditions are met. Being: Either player uses the stack, The upkeep step, and if any creatures are eligible for attacks- this will only check if there are creatures on any players turn. I like to keep all stops on even If i'm retarded and playing belcher. Can't tell you how much I love F4.

[dzudzubajac]

I dont think prices will be any lower.

Since I dont play regulary, I hoarded some of the goddies while they were cheap (engineered explosives,bridge from below,ensnaring bridge, onslaught fetches) and sold them now to buy some legacy/vintage staples.
Fow, led and duals are pretty cheap, and if you put up an ad "human buying XXX" you might get some good deals - I bought playset of cabal therapies for 10 ;)

If anybody wishes to playtest, add me as buddy (my username is dzudzubajac) and pm me when online, I have dredge and ANT ready to go

[Rune]

Sooo, the beta is being unchained on July 16. The beta client is basically the worst case of sunk cost fallacy you could imagine. It fixes nothing, but adds several new detrimental problems that make playing the game unnecessarily hard and thoroughly unenjoyable. Not only is the program functionally worse than the current client, but the cards also no longer look like actual Magic cards (one of my biggest gripes). Also worth mentioning is the new center-justification of cards (which everyone hates) that makes everything on the board look incredibly tiny, and forces you to play with the client covering your whole screen, if you want any chance to see what's going on (a big reason why it's so unappealing for streaming).

In the end, I'm probably too dumb to sell my collection, and will instead just take a very long break from playing MODO and rely on my blind faith that they will either a) fix these issues b) decide to scrap the beta c) release a whole new client altogether. Le sigh...

What are your plans?

[yugular]

What are your plans?

Im planning to learn the new client and continue playing. Now is a great time to invest in eternal formats and launch of the new client can affect on some Modern/Standard prices also if people just leave modo and dump their collections. I have heard that previous times when client changed have been good times to invest in cards (much like last winter when we lost online PTQs etc.)

I have 100% confidence that wotc will make the new client work. It won't be a program that will win awards, but it will work.

[mishima_kazuya]

Im planning to learn the new client and continue playing. Now is a great time to invest in eternal formats and launch of the new client can affect on some Modern/Standard prices also if people just leave modo and dump their collections. I have heard that previous times when client changed have been good times to invest in cards (much like last winter when we lost online PTQs etc.)

I have 100% confidence that wotc will make the new client work. It won't be a program that will win awards, but it will work.

Same situation for me, I am going to try V4 when the time comes and if its not playable, then I will wait it out until they make V4 playable. Fwiw, a similar situation occurred when they switched from V2 to V3 and V3 was apparently in a much worse shape than V4 during switch time.

[Barook]

I'm using the V4 client out of habit. Despite its shortcomings, it's definitely usable in its current state, but all the changes they've made in the last few weeks just made the client worse than before. New shitty sounds, the new trade window is utter crap (Why does it automatically switch to the trade window whenever a bot writes something? It's incredibly annoying.) and it became alot slower since the last update.

If they keep up the pace with shitty new updates, it becomes completely unusable when they switch. It's like they make the client bad on purpose to the point where it becomes downright infuriating.

[JDK]

I'm mostly annoyed by the UI, responsiveness and things like msg notifications when I have the chat already opened. Sure it's playable, but this is still software you would go bancrupt with as a software developer, unless you have an addicted userbase.

[Barook]

I picked this link up from the Manadrain forum where they discuss the shittiness of MODO:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wizards-of-the-Coast-Reviews-E4718.htm

While probably not anything new, it confirms what we always knew/suspected:

- MODO is understaffed and the pay isn't competitive, resulting in shitty programmers working on something way too big for them
- nepotism and ass-kissing galore
- incompetent people across the board

Basically, anything out of the R&D team sucks. Hard. So I don't think the chances of MODO becoming good anytime soon are high, even with rumors that they recently started and outsourced the development of V5.

[mishima_kazuya]

I picked this link up from the Manadrain forum where they discuss the shittiness of MODO:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wizards-of-the-Coast-Reviews-E4718.htm

While probably not anything new, it confirms what we always knew/suspected:

- MODO is understaffed and the pay isn't competitive, resulting in shitty programmers working on something way too big for them
- nepotism and ass-kissing galore
- incompetent people across the board

Basically, anything out of the R&D team sucks. Hard. So I don't think the chances of MODO becoming good anytime soon are high, even with rumors that they recently started and outsourced the development of V5.

I'm a patient man, I'll wait this out, hold on to my collection, and wait for V4 to be playable.

[Rune]

Yeah, I'm also gonna wait this one out. Probably play the free M15 sealed, but that's it. There's no real motivation for me to play constructed, since there's no update on what's happening with the MOCS.

I'll return when they've fixed the worst bugs on the beta, and actually made the cards look like Magic cards again. Everytime I look at duals on the beta I just cry ;_;

http://i58.tinypic.com/2rw28w0.jpg

[Barook]

Theros boosters have been creeping up in price again the last few days. What's a good point to sell, though? They're currently at ~3 tix each.

[Meekrab]

Yeah, I'm also gonna wait this one out. Probably play the free M15 sealed, but that's it. There's no real motivation for me to play constructed, since there's no update on what's happening with the MOCS.

I'll return when they've fixed the worst bugs on the beta, and actually made the cards look like Magic cards again. Everytime I look at duals on the beta I just cry ;_;

http://i58.tinypic.com/2rw28w0.jpg
Those are modern frame duals, so you're going to be crying forever.

You're welcome to pay ~20% more to get these http://i.imgur.com/jo2B7va.jpg which are functionally identical.

[Barook]

Those are modern frame duals, so you're going to be crying forever.

You're welcome to pay ~20% more to get these http://i.imgur.com/jo2B7va.jpg which are functionally identical.
What absolutely doesn't make sense is that the VMA duals have the old frame in V3, but the new frame in V4. WTF!? :eyebrow:

[mishima_kazuya]

Theros boosters have been creeping up in price again the last few days. What's a good point to sell, though? They're currently at ~3 tix each.

I usually wait until they go over 3.5 (that's if I sell at 3.5), no matter how long it takes.

[Rune]

Those are modern frame duals, so you're going to be crying forever.

You're welcome to pay ~20% more to get these http://i.imgur.com/jo2B7va.jpg which are functionally identical.

I should have been more specific. I wasn't talking about the modern frame. The biggest issue I have is the weird color fading in the text box of the duals. Contrast it to the normal text box of duals that have the whole "rectangles inside rectangles"-thing going on.

http://i58.tinypic.com/2rw28w0.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/97sp3n.jpg

Other than that, the center-justification in the beta also makes cards look like post stamps. Maybe cards in V3 also look like garbage, and I've just gotten used to it, but beta cards definitely look significantly shittier in my eyes.


In other news, Vintage Masters keep plummeting. Time to buy some power soon!

[Dragonslayer_90]

So, how filled is the modo meta filled with burn, belcher, oops all spells, and other budget competitive decks? One pro yesterday who does modo streaming said he'd recommend people stay away from modo for legacy because he said the meta's too filled with spoiler decks like the ones listed above to be relevant for testing. How true is this claim?

[Barook]

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/legacy

Burn certainly is part of the meta now.

Glass cannon combo is a problem in 2-mans at best, but if you scout the players by watching replays first and only join queues against people who don't play said decks.

[LeoCop 90]

I wouldn't label the decks you listed as "budget decks" and consider them a reason to avoid attending a queue. Well, they certainly are budget because they cost less than most other decks, but this doesn't mean they are underpowered and/or people choose to play them because of budget issues. At least results speak for burn recently, you shouldn't ignore it and if your deck is soft to it, sideboard accordingly.

[Dragonslayer_90]

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/legacy

Burn certainly is part of the meta now.

Glass cannon combo is a problem in 2-mans at best, but if you scout the players by watching replays first and only join queues against people who don't play said decks.

Yeah, I guess burn is legit now, for better or for worse... The meta seems like a reasonable mirror of a competitive meta in real life from the link you provided. My guess is that this pro may have had one or a few bad runs and chalked it up to there being too much burn and glass cannon combo in the meta.

EDIT: @LeoCop90: Yeah Burn's not necessarily a budget deck in the sense that it's cheap and competitive-ish but not really. It's real player in the meta now like Barook said. I don't think I can say the same thing about oops and belcher though. I'm sure there are people who actually like playing belcher and oops all spells and didn't build them because of their cheap price tag, but they are still relatively cheap decks that are kinda competitive but not really because force of will is still in most legacy decks. I'm sure some people would buy into them because they are cheap despite the fact that they are Tier 2 decks at best.

[Barook]

What "pro" are you talking about?

Burn is definitely a meta consideration in the MODO meta. Sometimes, it just has draws that you can't beat. I run 4 Leylines in my D&T board due to it and other combo decks.

[Dragonslayer_90]

What "pro" are you talking about?

Burn is definitely a meta consideration in the MODO meta. Sometimes, it just has draws that you can't beat. I run 4 Leylines in my D&T board due to it and other combo decks.

Talking about Jeff Hoogland. I guess he's not a pro in the strictest sense since most of his notoriety comes from some strong finishes on the SCG circuit but I'm not sure if he has any big mtg accomplishments besides that. Known in legacy for playing some sort of loam deck usually.

[Koby]

Talking about Jeff Hoogland. I guess he's not a pro in the strictest sense since most of his notoriety comes from some strong finishes on the SCG circuit but I'm not sure if he has any big mtg accomplishments besides that. Known in legacy for playing some sort of loam deck usually.

Between his constant whining on variance, bashing Burn & Belcher decks as viable options in 4 Round Daily Events, and reluctance to play Brainstorm; I'd say his opinion on Legacy deck selection or performance is spotty at best.

Burn has a place, especially in capped events. It serves the same purpose that Belcher and Storm combo decks hold in similar events: defeat those who are unprepared.

[LeoCop 90]

Well , i can agree that it could be a bit frustrating playing against belcher and all spells multiple times in events, because it all comes down to having force of will/other relevant hate immediately. If you have it, you win, if you don't, you lose. Matches are not even skill intensive as long as you at least remotely know how their deck work and when to use force of will.

Regarding burn nothing else to say... is now a relevant force in the metagame and is also a very solid deck... but it just dies to some sideboard cards, so if you are afraid be prepared for the matchup.

[Barook]

From TMD: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=46552.0


This just in from the eternal clown show that is the Magic Online Live team:

Queues end on 7/25, come back for two weeks in August and then gone forever (until throwback draft).

Sealed Dailies only until 7/25 and then probably gone forever.

Vintage Constructed DE/PE unaffected (as far as we currently know) and the status of 2 man and 8 man queues is currently unknown.

Just another colossal "miscommunication" by the team that is going to force you into the beta in 2 weeks.

VMA drafts gone soon, which means prices are going to creep up.

Way to be a bunch of dicks, Wizards.

[Rune]

They wanted the VMA cards to stay "special" (read: expensive) and P9 was getting pretty cheap, so they jammed the brakes. Now Lotus jumped from 150 to 250 overnight and all VMA staples are mostly sold out.

Very bad for the growth of Vintage as a format. The decision only helps the hoarders that want to inflate prices artificially. Sad

[Koby]

So, WotC continues to shoot itself in the foot in the sake of short-term profits.

Good riddance Magic Online, I hardly knew you, and will not mourn your self destructive tendency.

[Barook]

So, WotC continues to shoot itself in the foot in the sake of short-term profits.

Good riddance Magic Online, I hardly knew you, and will not mourn your self destructive tendency.
And it doesn't even make sense since VMA is a cash cow.

I guess they fear nobody is going to draft M15 while VMA is still around.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Well, if you have the time, grinding VMA's is how I got all of my power. Granted you don't crack too many of them (I opened 5 power in probably 60 or so drafts), but if you play in 4-3-2-2 8 man drafts you can usually end up breaking at least even until you do hit a power. I recommend 4-3-2-2s since the 8-4s are full of competent players, and usually you can outplay someone into getting your 2 packs. The added bonus is that you can open stuff like Force of Will, Jace, all the duals, etc. to start filling out your collection and then just sell off the truly expensive cards. It's an investment, but if the current prices hold or go up you'll likely have gained value.

Anyway, yes it sucks, but it does bring more players into vintage, even if not by as much as originally hoped. I for one have my first non-proxy vintage deck ever and have been having a blast with it. Also have my set of forces, a couple jaces, and all the duals I need for legacy if I ever decide to drop the thousands of dollars needed to get wastelands.

[Vicar in a tutu]

Also have my set of forces, a couple jaces, and all the duals I need for legacy if I ever decide to drop the thousands of dollars needed to get wastelands.
I'm in the same situation. Jesus, Wasteland costs a fortune on MTGO. They have to reprint it ASAP.

[Barook]

http://community.wizards.com/forum/magic-online-general/threads/4110251

And now they're back to the old schedule (kind of, at least).

MTGO management at its finest, gentlemen.

[Meekrab]

From TMD: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=46552.0


VMA drafts gone soon, which means prices are going to creep up.

Way to be a bunch of dicks, Wizards.
Are they worried that Vintage being reasonably accessible means less people will play standard or draft? Or afraid of offending old school collectors who have houses worth of graded cards chilling in display cases? I just don't understand the logic of creating a premium set that's selling like Tomacco and then pulling the plug on it early.

At least my power went up a bunch of money literally the week after I bought in. /eyeroll

edit: or not lol wotc

[kenborge]

At least they listened when people complained. That is something

[menace13]

So, WotC continues to shoot itself in the foot in the sake of short-term profits.

Good riddance Magic Online, I hardly knew you, and will not mourn your self destructive tendency.
I became jaded with online while ago. Paying out for a fifteen hundred dollar deck to gamble for 11 tix is ass rape. I guess if it were more affordable and fired around the clock like Standard, I'd be slightly happier.



http://community.wizards.com/forum/magic-online-general/threads/4110251

And now they're back to the old schedule (kind of, at least).

MTGO management at its finest, gentlemen.
Worth is controlling the price of magic cards online. He and WotC can eat a bag of dicks.

[mishima_kazuya]

MOCS promo Wasteland, please. Just one time please. I seriously want to have more deck options in Legacy without having to drop $400 on a set of Wastelands. :mad:

[menace13]

Community backlash got there for this one.



https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2227400121/Worth_Twitter_Avatar_Black_normal.pngWorth Wollpert @mtgworth (https://twitter.com/mtgworth) · 5h (https://twitter.com/mtgworth/status/487373135189008384)

Earlier this week, we screwed up. (and I screwed up) We tried to fix it: http://community.wizards.com/forum/magic-online-general/threads/4110251 … (http://t.co/lNnPZqFyOl) VMA around til Khans in most forms.

And his tweet about it after he admits he made an error.


https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2227400121/Worth_Twitter_Avatar_Black_normal.pngWorth Wollpert @mtgworth (https://twitter.com/mtgworth) · 5h (https://twitter.com/mtgworth/status/487376028096933889)

Also, as a punishment, I am not allowing myself to have ice cream for the rest of the summer. :) #isgelatoicecream (https://twitter.com/hashtag/isgelatoicecream?src=hash)
Such a cock smoker.

#isthathowyouapologizetoyourcustomers

[thecrav]

On his reddit post:


I will now go stab myself in the eye with a rusty awl coated in lemon juice & salt. :)

I upvoted so hard that my mouse broke.

[menace13]

He's a wanker





I swear on my life it was not intended to be condescending. I also see how it could easily be read that way. I was trying to make a joke that several players tweeted me that they (literally) would like to eat actual ice cream for every meal. Missed the mark and made light of something that people were emotional about. Bad combo and a mistake.



I still don't know what ice cream tweets and rusty awl posts have to do with simply saying sorry. Was it really in the best interest or the time to make jokes? As people dumped money into the game spurred on by your announcements to not be locked out of Vintage? Comforting to know tweets on dessert are top priority!

[Barook]

MOCS promo Wasteland, please. Just one time please. I seriously want to have more deck options in Legacy without having to drop $400 on a set of Wastelands. :mad:
It's bound to happen sooner or later.

It's just not worth playing DEs right now with Geist as promo, though. I don't care that it's a GP promo/whaever - you don't HAVE to use it. It's almost Ratchet Bomb promo tier, considering how worthless it's going to be.

About the Worth thing: He's incompetence incarnate. What else do you expect of somebody like him? If it wasn't for the raging Nepotism at Wizards, he would be long gone already.

Now the interesting thing is: How did the community backlash hit him to revise his decision? Forums, social media, etc?

[kenborge]

There was a lot of comments on twitter at least.

https://twitter.com/mtgworth/status/486630692445380608
https://twitter.com/mtgworth/status/486647438933889024

[Barook]

Does anyone have experience with the QuarterofSix_bot chain?

I did some trades with it before and never had any troubles so far, aside from them restocking tix only slowly. That changed today.

I traded in 12 VMA boosters at a decent price, took some tix and stored ~ 70 tix worth of bot credit. A bit later, I wanted to take some JOU boosters for retrading, confirmed the transaction, but the trade was never completed. Yet roughly 22 tix of my bot credit was gone.

Tried another bot of the chain, took 4 tix, confirmed the trade, some waiting time, trade cancelled by the bot, another 4 tix gone from the credit. :eyebrow:

I've messaged the E-mail given by the bots and I'm currently waiting for an answer. From what I've gathered, it should be a respectable bot chain that doesn't scam people.

Did anyone else have that sort of problem yet? Not sure if it's related to V4 since I'm using V4 since forever.

[Koby]

Does anyone have experience with the QuarterofSix_bot chain?

I did some trades with it before and never had any troubles so far, aside from them restocking tix only slowly. That changed today.

I traded in 12 VMA boosters at a decent price, took some tix and stored ~ 70 tix worth of bot credit. A bit later, I wanted to take some JOU boosters for retrading, confirmed the transaction, but the trade was never completed. Yet roughly 22 tix of my bot credit was gone.

Tried another bot of the chain, took 4 tix, confirmed the trade, some waiting time, trade cancelled by the bot, another 4 tix gone from the credit. :eyebrow:

I've messaged the E-mail given by the bots and I'm currently waiting for an answer. From what I've gathered, it should be a respectable bot chain that doesn't scam people.

Did anyone else have that sort of problem yet? Not sure if it's related to V4 since I'm using V4 since forever.

Contact Wizards Customer Support, find a copy of the trade logs, and report it as fraud. It's gonna be a hard sell since you're making numerous transactions that are hard to track.

[menace13]

It's a trade bug. Also works with cards. You can trade your items over and get nothing in return even though display looked normal. Good ole MTGO

[Barook]

Contact Wizards Customer Support, find a copy of the trade logs, and report it as fraud. It's gonna be a hard sell since you're making numerous transactions that are hard to track.
I have this (http://i.imgur.com/rjDuWbu.jpg?1) screenshot, for example. Important is the middle part where I trade the 11 JOU boosters, the rest was just looking through the prices. Got a screenshot (http://i.imgur.com/58heN0m.jpg?1) of the other bot there I did the 4 ticket thing, too.

Not sure if that helps, though. I'm still waiting for an answer. Hopefully I'll get a refund. Otherwise, I'm reporting for fraud as you suggested.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I had a similar thing happen once, but the bot owner was very nice about it and gave me an additional 5 tix for my troubles. Hopefully it'll work out the same for you, generally the bot owners make such a killing from normal business that they'll refund you or give you your credit back without too much trouble.

[Barook]

I had a similar thing happen once, but the bot owner was very nice about it and gave me an additional 5 tix for my troubles. Hopefully it'll work out the same for you, generally the bot owners make such a killing from normal business that they'll refund you or give you your credit back without too much trouble.
I hope it works out for me, too. Is there any way to avoid the trading bug?

That said, does anyone know why VMA packs are crashing in price right now?

[menace13]

I hope it works out for me, too. Is there any way to avoid the trading bug?

That said, does anyone know why VMA packs are crashing in price right now?
You cannot. The bug is exploitable. Beta feature ftw

[Barook]

You cannot. The bug is exploitable. Beta feature ftw
So it's a Beta only bug?

I guess I'll stick to my main trading bots, then.

Edit: Got an answer and my bot credit restored. Trading worked fine now.

[menace13]

So it's a Beta only bug?
.
From what I know, yes. WotC refuses to address it for fears of people going rampant with it. It's something they cannot fix as of yet. Been around since May IIRC

[Barook]

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-online-announcements-july-15-2014-2014-07-15

For those interested, next month's promo is going to be Show & Tell. Definitely a decent promo, even when the value for the promo is going to be much lower than the current 85$.

They also increase round time by 10 minutes (5 for each player) until August 13th. More power to the durdle! :rolleyes:

Edit: Gotta love Wizards - appearently, they made powered Cube draft and forgot to set it to Phantom (thus, you could keep all the cards afterwards). Now they have to fix the whole mess.

[Freggle]

A full x4 Vintage Masters playset of duals can be purchased on MTGOtraders for right around $270.

Is this awesome, or bad? I say awesome. Discuss.

[Barook]

A full x4 Vintage Masters playset of duals can be purchased on MTGOtraders for right around $270.

Is this awesome, or bad? I say awesome. Discuss.
I would rather buy from Goatbots since they're one of the cheapest Botchains around and their stock is huge, too. MTGOtraders has a nice service and reliable when looking for more obscure/older cards, but they're also more on the expensive side.

It's also less awesome that Wastelands are 130+ tix each and fetchlands also became horribly expensive.

[Freggle]

I would rather buy from Goatbots since they're one of the cheapest Botchains around and their stock is huge, too. MTGOtraders has a nice service and reliable when looking for more obscure/older cards, but they're also more on the expensive side.

It's also less awesome that Wastelands are 130+ tix each and fetchlands also became horribly expensive.


I'll have to check out Goatbots. I never knew that. As for the other prices I agree and disagree. There is an ebb and flow to how prices work, and frankly that is kinda the fun. As an example FOW online in the last year and 1/2 have fluctuated between 120ish and 25 I think.

I think that is good. A barrier to Legacy is the land prices and flooding the market with them is a good thing if even for the short term. This broadens the pool of players and increases competition.

Having all the cards the same price and cheap Magic would be a completely different game. Exclusion, and market is a dimension of the game I happen to enjoy. If all the cards were the same price there would be less variance in what people play, and overall meta would become relatively stagnant with short periods of variance when card rotate in /out. I'm sure in relatively short order Wizards will find a way to reduce the price of fetchlands to balance it out. ...but expect duals to climb at that point because I'm thinking VMA will be done at that point.

[Barook]

One interesting thing I've observed is that quite a few people don't realize how to make tickets tradeable in V4.

[sjmcc13]

One interesting thing I've observed is that quite a few people don't realize how to make tickets tradeable in V4. because the interface for making them trade able does not work right all the time.

Friday I was going got buy some cards from a bot, and it told me I did not have enough tickets available, I closed the trade went to my collection, selected the tickets and then right clicked and selected the make all available option in the window gave it enough time to have updated, and re-started the trade and got the same error message from the bot saying I had no tix available.

The interface for making things trade able sucks and has bugs. the entire collection interface sucks if I select a set and rarity I want to see just the cards at that rarity in that set, not every card that was ever at that rarity. I get 94 results for VMA and Special, I should just get 9.

[Koby]

I get 94 results for VMA and Special, I should just get 9.

Sounds like some hackjob programmer is using || (OR) rather than && (AND) in the filtering task, and I'm not surprised at all by this.

[sjmcc13]

Sounds like some hackjob programmer is using || (OR) rather than && (AND) in the filtering task, and I'm not surprised at all by this.Something like that.
It seems to be looking at every rarity the card has been printed at, instead of the rarity in the set I have selected. Not 100% because I traded off my modo colleciton a few years ago and am only getting back in to it with VMA as my local play options have "dried up" due to me not being fond of kitchen table multiplayer with players who do not have the attention span to keep track of the game state orthe badly run drafts and that seem to be all the local shop wants to run (the last time he scheduled a Standard FNM he changed it to a Conspiracy draft at the last minuite, or at least did not put in an effort to get the word out of a scheduling change, and I found out right as I was about to leave).

[Meekrab]

Sounds like some hackjob programmer is using || (OR) rather than && (AND) in the filtering task, and I'm not surprised at all by this.
It's more complicated than that. If you unselect VMA and only select "Special" rarity, it brings up 815 results, most of which are promotional cards, but also including weird stuff like the timeshifted cards from TSB.

My guess is somewhere in WotC's database there's a table that's like Card - Rarity and there's a table that's like Card - Set and there's entries like "Circular Logic - Common", "Circular Logic - Uncommon", "Circular Logic - Promo" and then the "Sets" table has "Circular Logic - VMA", "Circular Logic - Torment" because it comes up in both VMA and Torment for Common and Uncommon and Special despite being a common in VMA and an uncommon in Torment. They're just missing an extra Where clause on their SQL query.

[mishima_kazuya]

Google "Hasbro Earnings Call and Report" and look at the news results

http://www.twst.com/update/69256-hasbro-inc-hasbro-reports-financial-results-for-the-second-quarter-2014

I am not a trained finance person, but to paraphrase from someone's facebook post:

1) They seem to view Hearthstone as not a competitor to MTGO and instead as a competitor to DoTP. Their argument being that both DoTP and Hearthstone appeal to the casual market.

2) Hasbro has confidence in whatever WoTC plans to do, due to the large revenue WoTC generated in the last few years.

3) They want to invest more into MTGO to make more players play concurrently and return large online tournaments to the client (PTQs?)

4) Revenue for MTG has declined slightly in the last quarter, but Hasbro has faith in M15 and Conspiracy sells. Magic has also seen a plateau in revenue for the first time in years. Profit from MTG is still very high though.

Don't quote me on the exact words, but remember this is conference from other company representatives asking Hasbro questions about their 2014 Q2 sales.

[Barook]

Google "Hasbro Earnings Call and Report" and look at the news results

http://www.twst.com/update/69256-hasbro-inc-hasbro-reports-financial-results-for-the-second-quarter-2014

I am not a trained finance person, but to paraphrase from someone's facebook post:

1) They seem to view Hearthstone as not a competitor to MTGO and instead as a competitor to DoTP. Their argument being that both DoTP and Hearthstone appeal to the casual market.

2) Hasbro has confidence in whatever WoTC plans to do, due to the large revenue WoTC generated in the last few years.

3) They want to invest more into MTGO to make more players play concurrently and return large online tournaments to the client (PTQs?)

4) Revenue for MTG has declined slightly in the last quarter, but Hasbro has faith in M15 and Conspiracy sells. Magic has also seen a plateau in revenue for the first time in years. Profit from MTG is still very high though.

Don't quote me on the exact words, but remember this is conference from other company representatives asking Hasbro questions about their 2014 Q2 sales.
That's pretty interesting.

1) DotP is for casuals, but they underestimate the impact of Heartstone, considering how shitty V4 currently is.

2) Wizards has hundreds of millions revenue each year. I'm not suprised they have free reign due to their success.

3) I wonder how they're planning to invest more money into MTGO since it clashes massively with Wizards' current policy. The responsible MTGO team consists of four way-below-the-industry-standard underpaid, terrible programmers with regular switches because of yearly lay-offs. MTGO probably makes 100+ million (if not way more) dollar each year, with a few ten thousand people. They could probably make billions if the program was actually good (and worked on other devices), hell, it could easily take the lead over paper. Maybe some of the managers don't want that and keep MTGO intentionally shitty to secure their jobs from the yearly lay-offs. That wouldn't suprise me anymore after all the info how Wizards' operates.

4) People don't want Bored of the Gods and Journey into Dicks? Color me suprised! Maybe they finally have to put some effort into set design again instead of taking old cards, doubling their mana cost and increase/double the numbers on the card.
Didn't Conspiracy have a lukewarm reception at best? Not sure about M15, but it doesn't seem like the greatest set, either. VMA is a massive cash cow, though (despite Worth being retarded enough to almost kill it off prematurely, just "because").

[mishima_kazuya]

That's pretty interesting.

1) DotP is for casuals, but they underestimate the impact of Heartstone, considering how shitty V4 currently is.

2) Wizards has hundreds of millions revenue each year. I'm not suprised they have free reign due to their success.

3) I wonder how they're planning to invest more money into MTGO since it clashes massively with Wizards' current policy. The responsible MTGO team consists of four way-below-the-industry-standard underpaid, terrible programmers with regular switches because of yearly lay-offs. MTGO probably makes 100+ million (if not way more) dollar each year, with a few ten thousand people. They could probably make billions if the program was actually good (and worked on other devices), hell, it could easily take the lead over paper. Maybe some of the managers don't want that and keep MTGO intentionally shitty to secure their jobs from the yearly lay-offs. That wouldn't suprise me anymore after all the info how Wizards' operates.

4) People don't want Bored of the Gods and Journey into Dicks? Color me suprised! Maybe they finally have to put some effort into set design again instead of taking old cards, doubling their mana cost and increase/double the numbers on the card.
Didn't Conspiracy have a lukewarm reception at best? Not sure about M15, but it doesn't seem like the greatest set, either. VMA is a massive cash cow, though (despite Worth being retarded enough to almost kill it off prematurely, just "because").

Its only a report of Q2 earnings of 2014, so do not expect major changes since these conferences happen every 3 months. Although from your reply among other people from social media, it sounds like Magic is being horribly mismanaged due to command structure problems.

[Barook]

That's at least from what I have gathered over the internet in the last few weeks in the wake of the massive disaster that is the MODO client in general.

If you're in Magic R&D, it's awesome (D&D is also somewhat nice due to free playmats or whatever), but everything else sucks hard. If you work for Wizards, you have to expect lots of unpaid overtime since it seems Wizards expects you to compensate for that with your love for MtG. Nepotism is also raging in the company (Tom LaPille, Worth, and other worthless bastards). Managers try to make to make decisions with the least possible risk due the yearly lay-offs, thus resulting in stagnation, be it MTGO or otherwise. Lots of managers also seem to have the slightest idea about the field they're working in, resulting in questionable decisions across the board. "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians." was used to describe the situation at Wizards by an ex-employee.

tl;dr: If you don't work for R&D or D&D, Wizards is a hellhole.

[yugular]

Marshall Sutcliffe did a podcast with Jon Loucks to talk about wotc, mtgo and why Jon quit his job at wotc (mtgo) after 15 months. Check it out from lrcast.com. I found it interesting.

[sjmcc13]

4) People don't want Bored of the Gods and Journey into Dicks? Color me suprised! Maybe they finally have to put some effort into set design again instead of taking old cards, doubling their mana cost and increase/double the numbers on the card.
This probably require that they leave the echo chamber they have set up to keep telling them they are doing a bang up job of it, instead of phoning it in and slowly lobotomizing the game to the point that a small fraction of the stratagies/archtypes that should be playable actually are. Standard is what ~80% aggro. fine there are different flavours, but it should not go above 50-60% of the field.


Didn't Conspiracy have a lukewarm reception at best? If you do not play legacy (which most of the player base), then it is of little interest other then cube supplies and EDH singels, it reduced the price of a few EDH cards, but not much else. There were so many missed opertunities it is not funny, they could have put in a few more non-basics with abilities and Wasteland, Strip is not a problem in VMA draft, and waste would not have been an issue with CNS draft. This would have been a perfect place to re-print FoW to get its price down, instead they made it a judge foil. The set has been steadily going down in value since release and is at a little over half its release price. Odds are it was not made to be a major selller, because they did not want to draw people away from M15 drafts.

Other then finally having a set of Explorations (though a ugly set as 2 US and 2 CNS do not match well), and the when you draft me cards for when I finally make a cube, I got very little value from the set. There was not enough new playables, and for the old playables I mostly had what I needed because they were not expensive cards.

[Barook]

Marshall Sutcliffe did a podcast with Jon Loucks to talk about wotc, mtgo and why Jon quit his job at wotc (mtgo) after 15 months. Check it out from lrcast.com. I found it interesting.
Edit: Can you give us the # of said cast?

Or can you give a quick summary?

[Lord Seth]

This probably require that they leave the echo chamber they have set up to keep telling them they are doing a bang up job of it, instead of phoning it in and slowly lobotomizing the game to the point that a small fraction of the stratagies/archtypes that should be playable actually are. Standard is what ~80% aggro. fine there are different flavours, but it should not go above 50-60% of the field.Standard is not 80% aggro, or even close to that. Where in the world did you get that idea?

[Barook]

I wonder what to do with my 2x 35 Phantom points. Join Holiday Cube drafts? Or join the M15 Prerelease events? :really:

[Barook]

Warning: Indulgent Tormentor is bugged as hell. You can't choose to sacrifice a creature and only have the draw option or paying life. :rolleyes: Probably lost me R4 and made me go 2-2.

At least I pulled 3 Souls - the white one (broken as fuck in Limited), the red one and a foil Soul of New Phyrexia (money right there!).

[Meekrab]

Warning: Indulgent Tormentor is bugged as hell. You can't choose to sacrifice a creature and only have the draw option or paying life. :rolleyes: Probably lost me R4 and made me go 2-2.
You have to click a creature to sacrifice, there's no button for that option.

[Barook]

You have to click a creature to sacrifice, there's no button for that option.
That's pretty fucking dumb, especially when you're used to how MODO normally operates.

[Meekrab]

I agree it's a bad interface design choice.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Not Legacy related, but in other news Gifts Ungiven is broken.

If you choose 2 cards the opponent only gets to pick 1 of them to go to the graveyard, the other goes to your hand.

Choosing 4 cards works as intended, and I don't know what happens with 3.

[Dosferra]

Anyone else having problems with Punishing Fire after the last patch?
And by having problems I mean it doesn't work/trigger from Grove of the Burnwillows.

[Nuke is Good]

Anyone else having problems with Punishing Fire after the last patch?
And by having problems I mean it doesn't work/trigger from Grove of the Burnwillows.

Yeah...lost a match the other day over that. My opponent just kept laughing, was not fun AT ALL.

[HammafistRoob]

You guys should organize an MTGO strike or something. I bet if everyone stopped playing it they would actually hire people who new what the fuck they were doing and make a way better platform that could easily, EASILY, outsell paper magic.

[menace13]

a way better platform that could easily, EASILY, outsell paper magic.
Worth is too busy finding a "sweetspot" Where he can keep prices high enough for collectors, and secondary market. Because if cards are too cheap he thinks no one will play the formats. That's why he's so hard at work taking away in event replay access. And stopped printing all the results from events so players won't think there's a problem with design and won't think any format is solved, so that it isn't boring. This allows him to sidestep terms like "embarrassing" with totally not snide remarks about Gelato not being ice cream. And then get called out on it on Reddit so he can back track and say it was a joke about how someone tweeted him they would eat ice cream every meal. Because that shit was totally relevant to the topic:rolleyes:

[Koby]

You could complain about how buggy the software is; or you can just stop playing mtgo altogether. WotC can't earn money if tickets are not consumed. Just stop playing!

[Rune]

Well, I started my boycott some time ago. It's not exactly hard to resist the urge to play at this moment. To be honest, I'm surprised anyone plays at all. Client is barely usable, pack prices are so low that dailies are -EV, no info on when the MOCS will return (wouldn't be surprised if it never will) and on top of that tons of old cards bugging out because M15 is released. This last one truly boggles the mind. Why do Tanglewire, Ponder, Gifts Ungiven etc. stop working correctly when seemingly completely unrelated cards are released?

[Barook]

Well, I started my boycott some time ago. It's not exactly hard to resist the urge to play at this moment. To be honest, I'm surprised anyone plays at all. Client is barely usable, pack prices are so low that dailies are -EV, no info on when the MOCS will return (wouldn't be surprised if it never will) and on top of that tons of old cards bugging out because M15 is released. This last one truly boggles the mind. Why do Tanglewire, Ponder, Gifts Ungiven etc. stop working correctly when seemingly completely unrelated cards are released?
Card work differently because they get new programmers nearly every year due to layoffs. That's why similiar cards work differently because they were made by different people. I guess a newbie screwed with some old code.


You could complain about how buggy the software is; or you can just stop playing mtgo altogether. WotC can't earn money if tickets are not consumed. Just stop playing!
Legacy doesn't have enough impact to do jackshit. At worst, they would cut down DE support. You can't stop the grinders nor the Standard apes.

The best thing would probably to organize a huge group over social media to cause a massive shitstorm until Worth gets removed from his current position. Getting that incompetent, ice-creaming devouring bastard fired is out of question thanks to nepotism galore. But maybe he could get replaced by somebody more competent since it isn't that hard to be more competent than Worth. The chances of success for this operation would be extremely slim, though.

[H]

There's no funding to actually fix it, so changing who is "in charge" means nothing, since all they are doing is polishing a turd. Worth seems really well suited for that actually.

[Barook]

There's no funding to actually fix it, so changing who is "in charge" means nothing, since all they are doing is polishing a turd. Worth seems really well suited for that actually.
Worth is only part of the problem, with others being the abyssal funding and the shitty command structure at Wizards.

That doesn't change the fact Worth is a main contributor of MODO's shittyness. Bad decisions like pulling VMA before the announced date are just the tip of the iceberg.

If you can't convince your superiors to do the sleightest of investments to make MTGO an actual good experience, you fail at your job.

An actual good MTGO experience would probably bring in hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollar. Especially with the rising tablet market. I'm not a fan of tablets, but an actual good, Hearthstone-Tier smooth client on a tablet would be the shit.

[Barook]

Sorry for the double post, there's some interesting stuff happening:

MOCS and PTQs are back (http://magic.wizards.com/en/MTGO/articles/archive/premier-play-returns-magic-online-2014-07-30)

They've also added a 5th Legacy daily each day at the time of this post.