Playtesting and Tournaments on Cockatrice

[Dragonslayer_90]

In light of the recent announcement of changes to prize structures for MTGO, (http://magic.wizards.com/en/MTGO/articles/archive/magic-online/august-2015-constructed-event-changes-2015-07-20) many Source members are selling out. This made me think of trying to think of a way to fill the void that will be left by not being able to play Dailies anymore. I have a proposal for two things:

1. A Source clan, testing group, whatever you want to call it for Cocaktrice. Basically, you'd post your account name here and what deck(s) you primarily play. This should help give our members a network of players to playtest with.

2. A recurring tournament series that would be played on Cocaktrice. I'm guessing monthly is the way to go as to how often it would happen. iamajellydonut has offered to put up prize support for the tournament and entry would still be free so people would be playing for more than just bragging rights.

So what do you Sourcers think of these ideas? Do post your thoughts and/or if you are down for either of these things.

[iamajellydonut]

2. A recurring tournament series that would be played on Cocaktrice. I'm guessing monthly is the way to go as to how often it would happen. iamajellydonut has offered to put up prize support for the tournament and entry would still be free so people would be playing for more than just bragging rights.

Just to clarify, it wouldn't be a one day sort of thing. It's not like popping online, finding a few randoms, and giving it a go. People have work, school, kids, and timezones to play around.

Entry would be free. Rounds would last about a week. Prizes would be minor, but substantial enough to still give the spirit of competition and to keep people interested and happy at the end of the day. The endorsed program of choice and the program everyone would be expected to be able to play with would be Cockatrice, but players could agree to play with whatever if it suited them better.

Really I was just looking to gauge interest. I've been wanting to do this for a while but have been wary of how many people would commit. So, even if I could get like fifteen or twenty people to say they'd be willing, I would love to throw it together and start taking actual signups.

Edit: Interest achived. Thread will go up tomorrow.

Edit: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29747-Source-Tournament-aka-Jelly-Jam-2015

[Megadeus]

I'd possibly be interested in this. I need to learn how to update cockatrice a bit easier, but I think this sounds fun.

[chris_acheson]

I'm down. My Cockatrice username is dunkelzahn, and I usually play Elves, Reanimating Pox, or janky homebrew.

Are you guys familiar with Magic League (http://magic-league.com/)? They run free online tournaments, with prize support coming from the site's ad revenue. They're mainly focused on Modern and Standard though.

[davelin]

Id be interested, my username there is davelin

[alphastryk]

I'd have to figure something else out to play, as playing Miracles on cockatrice makes me want to throw my computer out the window.

[iamajellydonut]

I'd have to figure something else out to play, as playing Miracles on cockatrice makes me want to throw my computer out the window.

On the plus side, there'd be no time limit. :V

Also, if anyone needs help with the Cock.de (Megadeus), just message me and I'll be more than happy to walk you through it.

[Ace/Homebrew]

In light of the recent announcement of changes to prize structures for MTGO, (http://magic.wizards.com/en/MTGO/articles/archive/magic-online/august-2015-constructed-event-changes-2015-07-20) many Source members are selling out.
I read through this thread and the link above, but have never played Magic online and understood none of the content in the WotC article (other than Wizards thinks these are good changes)... Can someone explain what has changed and why it is causing Source members to sell out of MTGO?

-----------

Edit: I read the other thread (MTGO Discussion (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29662-MTGO-discussion)) and it helped some... Prizes stayed the same, but cost to enter increased. Plus (I think) less Eternal events or harder to enter the available ones.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Sure, a few reasons are making most people sell out, the latest change in prizes isn't the biggest of them but more of a "final straw" type thing.

The prize structures and buy ins are changing. Before a Daily tournament used to cost 6 tickets ($6 equivalent) to join and play in a 4 round tournament. The prize payouts for this event were actually pretty good, if you went 3-1 or 4-0 you'd get more than your money back in the form of packs of cards (online packs of cards). Those were easily trade-able to the ever-online master race of computer bots in the trading room who would give you tickets (or cards if you wanted) and you could basically go infinite as long as you did decently well in Dailies.

The new change doubles the entry fee while only paying out "Player Points", their new form of Ticket which is untradeable and therefore impossible to cash out on. You can still go infinite with them, it's just you can't ever trade them for cards you want or money. This makes Daily Events much less desirable.

The 8-man queues that fire off whenever 8 people join are getting slightly better payouts, but the problem with eternal formats is those never really fill up. The daily events almost never fail because they had good EV, but 8 mans never happen. So basically if you were trying to play in tournaments, now the entry fee is doubled and all prizes are account bound.

This isn't really the main reason I think, though it is for some. To many, Legacy is getting boring and the cards are worth far too much to justify keeping them on a client that has no authentication or way to stop someone from stealing everything you own with just a single password. Magic online itself has proven time and again that they aren't even trying to improve the client, they're just trying to cash grab to the detriment of everything else.

We thought we'd be getting a Hearthstone equivalent of Arena mode where you don't have to wait for everyone else in your pod to finish playing before the next round starts and you could just be constantly playing people, but that was put on the back burners and eventually they just stopped announcing anything about it.

We thought we'd be getting some regular interface updates what with the new, mandatory Beta client, but memory leaks still happen to the point where you are better off closing and opening the client between rounds.

But in classic MTGO style we get nothing. Not only do we get no improvements, the only announcements we ever get are crap like "hey, we're increasing entry costs to make it feel like it's a more competitive tournament style, and also we're making all prizes account bound."

I'm glad I sold everything. Compared to anything else I can be doing on my computer, Magic is just one of the less fun things. You basically spend at least 50% of your time on there waiting for other people to finish games. It's like going to a paper tournament but not having the ability to talk to anyone. How have they still not done anything about that, it's such a relic of the past to have to sit and wait for other people to finish. Even the top MTGO streamers have to play other games while waiting for things to finish. People who make their livelihood off of this game have to open up something like Hearthstone while waiting for games to be done. That's just absurd.

[Ace/Homebrew]

A few reasons are making most people sell out.
Thanks man! :laugh:
The (lack of) digital security seems like a huge issue. Makes me wonder if it is easier to steal someone's bag or hack their account...

[Dragonslayer_90]

On the plus side, there'd be no time limit. :V

I'm not so keen on there being NO time limit. I think the standard 50 minute + Five turns is good. Maybe we can do 55 or 60 minutes. But I think anymore than 60 is not proper for a competitive tournament. And this is coming from a miracles player. I love having all the time in the world, but for tournaments I'd prefer for them to be timed if we're trying to have a competitive atmosphere since we have to play under timed conditions irl anyways.

[Quasim0ff]

I'm not so keen on there being NO time limit. I think the standard 50 minute + Five turns is good. Maybe we can do 55 or 60 minutes. But I think anymore than 60 is not proper for a competitive tournament. And this is coming from a miracles player. I love having all the time in the world, but for tournaments I'd prefer for them to be timed if we're trying to have a competitive atmosphere since we have to play under timed conditions irl anyways.

I've actually liked having 40 minutes for my playtesting sessions, as a miracles player.

I know I play fairly quick, and my friends do to, but that's not necessarily true in a tournament.

[iamajellydonut]

Time limits on the actual game are a non-issue. The primer's been written. As I said before, all I'm looking for is interest.

[PirateKing]

I'm interested, I'd just need some assistance getting the client running.
Last time I tried I couldn't get a current versions and none of the new cards.

[Bosque]

Interested.

[pointicus]

I would also be interested.

[ExpiredRascals]

I would be interested in competing

[dsck]

Interested!

[D@N]

Interested, anyone is welcome to add me at the same name when i actually have time to sign on.

[bigbobbobber]

Interested. Find me at bigbobbobber on cockatrice . Non-Sourcer cousin said he's interested as well, find him at troids.

[lyracian]

I am interested. Never used Cockatrice but I will get it installed this week and give it a spin.
As for decks; I prefer Prison/control style (Pox, Miracles, D&T or Lands) I have also been playing around with Chalice decks (Tezz, Aggro loam)

[Quasim0ff]

Anyhow; In a months time, I'll be interested as well :)

[genuine fugazi]

+1

I've used Cockatrice a few times, but pretty much a noob. One thing that I was not able to figure out and that still bothers me is playing with/against counterspells. On MWS there were those nifty "Ok?" and "Ok" buttons that you would click to see if your spell resolves or not. How do you usually handle this on Cockatrice? Type it manually in the chat box?

[Quasim0ff]

+1

I've used Cockatrice a few times, but pretty much a noob. One thing that I was not able to figure out and that still bothers me is playing with/against counterspells. On MWS there were those nifty "Ok?" and "Ok" buttons that you would click to see if your spell resolves or not. How do you usually handle this on Cockatrice? Type it manually in the chat box?

Yeah, which means it's way easier to use Skype or something similar to communicate while playing..

[Deviruchi]

+1

I've used Cockatrice a few times, but pretty much a noob. One thing that I was not able to figure out and that still bothers me is playing with/against counterspells. On MWS there were those nifty "Ok?" and "Ok" buttons that you would click to see if your spell resolves or not. How do you usually handle this on Cockatrice? Type it manually in the chat box?

In: Cockatrice/Settings.../Messages you can add some of these "OK", "Thinking", "In response". During games they will be active via Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2 and so on (or right mouse click/Say/). I prefered visible buttons in MWS but what can you do.

Remember to play only vs registered users so after any timeout you/evil can come back to the match.

[jrsthethird]

I have a really goofy schedule so I'd need some advance notice, but I'm down. I haven't played on Cockatrice in ages.

[Barook]

I would try to set up a thread similiar to the MTGO names one, including time zones.

E.g. it doesn't make sense to pair up e.g. West Coast vs Europeans, simply the resulting time requirement is retarded.

Edit: Is there a way to set up a Source room on the Cockatrice server?

[Richard Cheese]

I'd probably be down. Mountain Standard Time master race here.

The newest Cockatrice client is very good, and they seem to have fixed a lot of issues with the Oracle tool and picture downloads. It's been so long since I actually logged in though that I don't remember what my username is anymore.

[Fry]

I would absolutely love to play against competent players on Cockatrice. As it is I mainly do Cockatrice for building/tweaking decks because I can jam in so many more goldfishing games than in real life. I do sometimes play against a few people I know though when time actually lines up.

Two main decks that I play in real life at competitive tournaments are MUD and D&T (giving Imperial Taxes a good run through to see how much I like it). I also am playing around with other decks too that I want to be able to play competitively in tournaments likes Aluren and Painter Stone.
My name on Cockatrice is EMFry

[iamajellydonut]

Well, this is always fun to wake up to.

Interest achieved. I'll post the thread tomorrow while I'm at work so that I have time to answer any questions I didn't think of before hand.

[iamajellydonut]

I'm interested, I'd just need some assistance getting the client running.
Last time I tried I couldn't get a current versions and none of the new cards.

While I do think the old client was generally better, the new client makes it waaaay easier to get started. Instead of importing cards and editing text files, Cockatrice will now actually prompt you when you first load the game, and there's a selection in the drop-down menus to refresh your cards when a new set comes out.

http://www.woogerworks.com/?option=com_content&view=article&id=91



Interested. Find me at bigbobbobber on cockatrice . Non-Sourcer cousin said he's interested as well, find him at troids.

I tried finding you on here after, but all I could remember is that your name had a shitton of "b"s in it. :V

Anyway, your cousin is welcome to join, as are any lurkers, but he would have to personally represent himself on the Source in order to do so.


Edit: Is there a way to set up a Source room on the Cockatrice server?

Maybe?


I have a really goofy schedule so I'd need some advance notice, but I'm down.
E.g. it doesn't make sense to pair up e.g. West Coast vs Europeans, simply the resulting time requirement is retarded.
etc

Not really a major issue or really possible to separate people based on geographical location since that's far from the only and not even the largest factor when considering what time people can be around to duke it out. The way it's being handled and sorted out is that rounds will last multiple days. I have a few numbers in mind for exact times, but safe to say that we're looking for a sweet spot that makes rounds not take forever yet allows those with actual lives to play their match around whatever they have going on.

Another factor is that the format will not be Swiss. There will be a bracket. And while there will be an enforced round time limit, if Barook and iamajellydonut are ready to play their next round match, they won't have to wait for Quasim0ff and bigbobbobber to finish whatever sorry games they have still going on.

[PirateKing]

Okay I did the things and built some decks to play. Account name is NinjaGodKing, and apparently there is already a PirateKing running around who is not me.
Now I just need to figure out how to stop seeing shit card art for everything that's been reprinted in MODO and FTV.

Let me know who and when I should play. In the meantime I'll try and learn how to not suck at the interface.

[Barook]

Okay I did the things and built some decks to play. Account name is NinjaGodKing, and apparently there is already a PirateKing running around who is not me.
Now I just need to figure out how to stop seeing shit card art for everything that's been reprinted in MODO and FTV.

Let me know who and when I should play. In the meantime I'll try and learn how to not suck at the interface.
You can locally save pictures.

Open the client, then Cockatrice --> Settings, then choose the path for the pictures you saved locally.

Although I haven't done it in ages, ever since Magic Workstation. Where can I still get HQ scans of cards? WotC seems to have taken down quite a few stuff.

[Jonathan Alexander]

You can actually just rearrange sets in the deck editor. The artwork shown is always from the first set on the list that contains the card.

[PirateKing]

You can actually just rearrange sets in the deck editor. The artwork shown is always from the first set on the list that contains the card.

I've done this but it's buggy, I get Origins basic lands and some Commander 2014 cards instead of the older printings.

[iamajellydonut]

Morning corn muffin has been demolished. Co-workers have been demolished. Left elbow has also been accidentally demolished.

Buckle up.

I'm formatting the OP right now. Once posted, everyone and anyone is welcome to sign up, and I'll ship out a PM to those who expressed interest here saying that the new thread exists.

UP
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?29747-Source-Tournament-aka-Jelly-Jam-2015