State of the Program for May 16th 2104

In the News:

Wizards has Announced that the Current Client Will Be Switched Off in July: Details Details here . Wizards feels that they have the Wide Beta running well enough to use, and have said that V3 will be gone by the time M15 arrives. You can provide feedback on the Wide Beta via email here , take this survey or post comments in this thread

Vintage Masters Details Released: Wizards has told us more about the Vintage Masters set. We know it will be big. At 325 cards, it is almost 50% larger than Modern Masters (which had 229 cards.) Vintage Masters is drawn entirely from cards that are not Modern legal. We know that each booster pack will include 10 commons, 3 uncommons, one rare or Mythic, and a 15th card which will be either a foil (of anything in the set) or one of the Power Nine cards. A Power Nine card will appear once every 53 packs. We also know that the set will have the Power Nine as specials, plus 30 Mythics, 105 rares, 80 uncommons and 101 commons. Details : Wizards has told us more about the Vintage Masters set. We know it will be big. At 325 cards, it is almost 50% larger than Modern Masters (which had 229 cards.) Vintage Masters is drawn entirely from cards that are not Modern legal. We know that each booster pack will include 10 commons, 3 uncommons, one rare or Mythic, and a 15card which will be either a foil (of anything in the set) or one of the Power Nine cards. A Power Nine card will appear once every 53 packs. We also know that the set will have the Power Nine as specials, plus 30 Mythics, 105 rares, 80 uncommons and 101 commons. Details here . Finally, we also know that Vintage Masters will change some rarities, including some that will affect Pauper. I do some math with that data further down.

Vintage Masters Previews Begin: Wizards has begun previewing cards for Vintage Masters. The visual Spoiler is : Wizards has begun previewing cards for Vintage Masters. The visual Spoiler is here . Note that some of the spoiled cards are still showing Alpha fames and artwork. They will actually have modern frames and the artwork used in the cube.

Vintage Masters Archetypes Revealed: Wizards has started showing us the contents of Vintage Masters. Gavin Verhey’s : Wizards has started showing us the contents of Vintage Masters. Gavin Verhey’s article on Tuesday showed us some uncommons which are being reprinted as commons, including Goblin General, Arrogant Wurm and Circular Logic. From this, we learn that one red archetype will be goblins, and that we can expect a UG madness deck. Later update – Marshall Sutcliffe broke down all the archetypes, here

Journey into Nyx Packs in the Prize Pool: As of last Wednesday’s downtime, Wizards has added Journey into Nix to prize payouts for most events. (Exception: Constructed 2-man queues still pay out one Theros pack.)

June MOCS Promo will be Gaea’s Cradle: Wizards is continuing to release high priced cards are MOCS promos. This is great, but the number of MOCS promos awarded is not enough to significantly cut the long-term price of these cards. Still – Cradle! (The player rewards promos, on the other hand, are not as exciting: Squelching Leeches and Dictate of Kruphix.)

Extended Downtime May 28th: Wizards will be pushing a big update on the 28th, so events will close at Midnight, PDT and MTGO as a whole will come down at 3am, PDT, Wednesday morning.

Theros Redemption Back: If you have been waiting to redeem some Theros sets, you can do so once again. Wizards has restocked.

Loucksey Article on Journey into Nyx: Jon Loucks of Wizards R&D wrote another article about the decisions that go into developing the client, and in implementing new cards. Read it Jon Loucks of Wizards R&D wrote another article about the decisions that go into developing the client, and in implementing new cards. Read it here

New Modern Event Deck Revealed: Wizards has shown us the decklist for the Modern event deck which will go on sale at the end of the month. I doubt that this will be released online. The reason – the MSRP (the suggested price) of this in paper in $74.99. If you were to buy this piecemeal, from a major dealer and buy near mint copies of the cards, it would run about $220. (You could probably get it for less if you were willing to buy played/worn copies, but the cards are not cheap.) If you bought the whole deck from Wizards has shown us the decklist for the Modern event deck which will go on sale at the end of the month. I doubt that this will be released online. The reason – the MSRP (the suggested price) of this in paper in $74.99. If you were to buy this piecemeal, from a major dealer and buy near mint copies of the cards, it would run about $220. (You could probably get it for less if you were willing to buy played/worn copies, but the cards are not cheap.) If you bought the whole deck from MTGOTraders.com – the best place to buy digital cards (trust me – I’ve bought a lot of cards from a lot of vendors over the past decade) – then it would cost about $ 93 – and that is if you bought every single card. Since many players would swap out the (Caves of Kolios) for Godless Shrine s, and pretty much anything for the Shrine of Loyal Legions , very few players will want enough cards to reach MSRP. That means they won’t buy. Given this fact, Wizards has really no reason to waste the time and effort to make an online version. Cool for the paper players, though. I also plan to throw it together online and try it out. If I get time, I’ll make a video.

Kibler on the Wide Beta: Kibler wrote a rant about the Wide Beta Kibler wrote a rant about the Wide Beta here . I have mixed reactions. On the one hand, many of his criticisms are spot on. On the other hand, he clearly has little experience with the client, some of his problems are due to that. On the gripping hand (if that term is unfamiliar, read this great novel ), Wizards seems to listen to Kibler, so maybe his rant will get them to pay attention. In a similarly depressing vein, check out the Glassdoor comments by Wizards employees

HammyBot Discount Increases: HammyBot was set up to sell off Erik Friborg’s collection, with all proceeds going to his wife and son. So far, HammyBot has risen over $7,000, but there are over 23,000 cards left in the collection. Those cards are being sold at 10% below retail price. Erik died three years ago, so HammyBot does not include any standard legal sets, but it includes a ton of Masters Edition and Classic cards, and some nice Modern bargains. I recently jumped on HammyBot and filled a couple holes in my collection, including a HammyBot was set up to sell off Erik Friborg’s collection, with all proceeds going to his wife and son. So far, HammyBot has risen over $7,000, but there are over 23,000 cards left in the collection. Those cards are being sold at. Erik died three years ago, so HammyBot does not include any standard legal sets, but it includes a ton of Masters Edition and Classic cards, and some nice Modern bargains. I recently jumped on HammyBot and filled a couple holes in my collection, including a Mana Drain to get ready for Vintage.

The Timeline:

This is a list of things we have been promised, or just want to see coming back. Another good source for dates and times is the MTGO calendar . Here’s what we know, want or are tracking. I also created another list for notable bugs. If you know of one that has not been fixed (and you or someone has filed a bug report) please let me know.

Item (date it will return) and notes

· Online PTQs & MOCS: (no date announced) Latest update is : (no date announced) Latest update is here

· Vintage Masters (6/16/2014) Previews are underway. Great line-up so far!

· V3 Client Shutdown ( JULY ) Read the latest announcement ) Read the latest announcement here

· Leagues (2014) Wizards has promised that leagues will return this year.

· Magic 2015 (7/28/2014) M15 will be online end of July. Expect the Prereleases 3 days earlier, or four days earlier if Wizards has a Wide Beta Showcase.

· Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska (5/12/2014) Details (5/12/2014) Details here

· Duel Decks: Speed vs. Cunning (10/6/2014) Details (10/6/2014) Details here

Bugs Needing a Good Stomping:

A ton of bugs got stomped last downtime. Here’s what I have been told still doesn’t work. Let me know what needs to be added.

· A trade bug in the Wider Beta client which allowed to change numbers in a trade during a particular point in the trade, and have that change show up for everyone but you, was fixed last downtime.

Opinion Section: Vintage Masters Math

If you need info on Vintage Masters, you can check out the development article the product overview , the article on rarity , or the visual spoiler . A quick overview: 325 cards, 9 specials, 30 Mythics, 105 rares. Packs will contain 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare or Mythic and a Special, which could be either a Power Nine Card or a foil of any card in the set (including power.) All cards in the set are not Modern legal, meaning they are from the old card sets, or from special products like Commander, Planechase or Conspiracy

You will open a Power Nine card about once in 53 packs. A specific Power Nine card is about twice as rare as a specific mythic rare.” The old rule of thumb is that you see a Mythic about once in eight packs. With 30 Mythics in the set, that means you should see a specific Mythic about once every 240 packs. A specific Power Nine card should appear about once every 53 packs times 9 Power cards, or once every 477 packs – so that comes out about right. Trick’s article on special rarity says that “.” The old rule of thumb is that you see a Mythic about once in eight packs. With 30 Mythics in the set, that means you should see a specific Mythic about once every 240 packs. A specific Power Nine card should appear about once every 53 packs times 9 Power cards, or once every 477 packs – so that comes out about right.

On the plus side, that means a “playset” of Power will be opened once every 477 packs, since Power is restricted. Put another way, it will take about 20 drafts to add one playset of power to the card pool. Or, put one more way, you will open a single piece of power once every 18 drafts. To draft your way into a complete set of Power, you will need to play in something like 160 drafts. The exact number varies, since you could see foil Power, and that would skew the results. We don’t know how often Foil Power will appear. It won’t be a straight cycle, where every card in the set appears in foil in sequence. If that happened, Foil Power would be more common that non-Foil.

I haven’t found a price for Vintage Masters packs, but presumably they will be priced like Modern Masters, at $6.99 per pack. (The price of Vintage Masters per pack is 6.99 as confirmed here .) At that price, 160 drafts would cost around $4,000 (assuming Modern Masters style pricing; $3,360 if Wizards does NIX TIX), less whatever prize packs you wrap back into the draft pool and whatever you can make reselling rares. The rares spoiled so far include a bunch of money cards, but we have only seen a fraction of the set. It is going to be what the Limited Resources crew refers to as a slow bleed. Obviously, the better you are at drafting, the slower that bleed will be.

I am not a great drafter. I jump formats a lot, and play a lot of Swiss. My average winnings per draft is probably a bit under two packs. With some luck and selling money rares, I might be able to draft into a set of power for a bleed cost of $1k-$2k. That is a ton of money. More importantly, I really hope Wizards keeps Vintage Masters around for a long time, because I don’t think I have managed 160 drafts a year in recent years.

And if I go 17 drafts without seeing Power, then open a Time Twister, I may quit right there.

Cutting Edge Tech:

Standard: The biggest Standard event last week was an SCG Open, and Journey into Nyx is finally showing its worth. The winning deck was built around a Journey card. More Journey cards made it into the The biggest Standard event last week was an SCG Open, and Journey into Nyx is finally showing its worth. The winning deck was built around a Journey card. More Journey cards made it into the Top 16 decklists , including Mana Confluence, Nix-Fleece Ram, Deicide and the new scry lands.

Modern: We had a Modern GP last weekend. GP Minneapolis had 1688 players, and featured some solid decks. Coverage is We had a Modern GP last weekend. GP Minneapolis had 1688 players, and featured some solid decks. Coverage is here . The Top 8 had several copies of UWR Control, but Scapeshift took it down. In second place was a Jund list. I’m going to feature the Jund deck, because most Modern watchers know what’s in Scapeshift.

Pauper: The most interesting thing to happen in the Pauper world is the announcement that Vintage Masters will reprint some uncommons at common, making them Pauper legal. Gavin Verhey previewed some of these new Pauper staples, : The most interesting thing to happen in the Pauper world is the announcement that Vintage Masters will reprint some uncommons at common, making them Pauper legal. Gavin Verhey previewed some of these new Pauper staples, here . He also included a very interesting decklist. How does this sound? (Note – the article has several decks using newly common commons.) Incidentally, Frog in a Blender is the answer to a kids riddle - what is green and red and goes around really fast? It was also a deck archetype back when these cards were in Standard.

Legacy: SCG had a Legacy Open last weekend. Journey into Nyx did not feature heavily in the : SCG had a Legacy Open last weekend. Journey into Nyx did not feature heavily in the Top 16 decks . Maybe next week. This week a UR Delver list took it down. One interesting change – this list replaced Young Pyromancer with Goblin Guide

Classic: Classic apparently failed to fire this week, or maybe MTGO.com just missed it. Instead, here’s the winning decklist from Ham on Wry III. (Thanks to Gordani for the : Classic apparently failed to fire this week, or maybe MTGO.com just missed it. Instead, here’s the winning decklist from Ham on Wry III. (Thanks to Gordani for the link to the HoW3 decklists.)

Card Prices:

Note: all my prices come from the fine folks at MTGOTraders.com . These are retail prices, and generally the price of the lowest priced, actively traded version. (Prices for some rare promo versions are not updated when not in stock, so I skip those.) You can get these cards at MTGOTraders.com web store, or from their bots: MTGOTradersBot(#) (they have bots 1-10), CardCaddy and CardWareHouse, or sell cards to MTGOTadersBuyBot(#) (they have buybots 1-4).

Standard staples: Standard prices dropped about 4% almost across the board. As I opined last week, this is probably due to several factors. First, Standard is boring right now, so fewer people play it. This cuts demand for standard cards. Those people not playing Standard are likely drafting, increasing the supply. Finally, people are liquidating unneeded cards to get TIX for the prereleases. At least, that is still my best guess.

Modern staples: Modern staples have also moved around a bit this week, but the big impacts here were due to flashback drafts. Likewise, Vintage Masters should have little impact, since Vintage Masters is entirely drawn from pre-Modern cards.

Pauper: Pauper is in some trouble at the moment. The Premier events are not firing, and the dailies are gone. However, Vintage Masters will bring some new cards to the format, and that might shake it up.

Legacy / Classic: the prices for vintage playable staples are very stable this week. Even the flashback drafts have had little impact. Vintage Masters will, but I compiled the prices early in the week – before the spoilers were released.

Set Redemption: You can redeem complete sets on MTGO. You need to purchase a redemption voucher from the store for $25. During the next downtime, Wizards removes a complete set from your account, and sends you the same set in paper. For those of you who redeem, here are the retail price of one of everything in each current set. Those prices have fallen again this week, even though Theros redemption is back.

Complete Set Price Last Week Change % Change Born of the Gods $64.51 $67.58 ($3.07) -5% Dragon's Maze $57.26 $60.50 ($3.24) -5% Gatecrash $88.38 $95.17 ($6.79) -7% Journey into Nix $124.67 (soon) n/a n/a M14 $118.49 $129.14 ($10.65) -8% Return to Ravnica $123.96 $129.69 ($5.73) -4% Theros $88.37 $97.05 ($8.68) -9%

The Good Stuff:

The following is a list of all the non-promo, non-foil cards on MTGO that retail for more than $25 per card. These are the big ticket items in the world of MTGO. This week, Force of Will has dropped, again, leaving Rishadan Port as the only card over $100. Lion’s Eye Diamond is just under $100, but we have only seen part of the Vintage Masters spoiler. (Lion's Eye Diamond is in the set!) They may well be in the set. (A reminder: I compile these lists using prices as of Wednesday. That means the prices shown have not reacted to events that happened on or after last Wednesday.)

Card Rarity Set Price Rishadan Port R MM $ 109.55 Lion's Eye Diamond R MI $ 99.09 Force of Will R MED $ 92.67 Tarmogoyf R FUT $ 90.48 Liliana of the Veil M ISD $ 83.77 Wasteland U TE $ 76.66 Misdirection R MM $ 71.98 Gaea's Cradle R UZ $ 64.71 Force of Will R PRM $ 64.50 Show and Tell R UZ $ 61.89 Tundra R ME2 $ 59.53 Mox Opal M SOM $ 57.76 Tundra R ME4 $ 55.39 Volcanic Island R ME3 $ 48.63 Polluted Delta R ONS $ 47.00 Vendilion Clique R MOR $ 46.84 Underground Sea R ME2 $ 44.21 Volcanic Island R ME4 $ 44.06 Griselbrand M AVR $ 40.41 Underground Sea R ME4 $ 39.58 Karn Liberated M NPH $ 39.19 Jace, the Mind Sculptor M WWK $ 38.82 Scalding Tarn R ZEN $ 37.78 Bayou R ME4 $ 37.47 City of Traitors R EX $ 36.59 Batterskull M NPH $ 36.00 Misty Rainforest R ZEN $ 35.32 Vampiric Tutor R VI $ 33.54 Cryptic Command R MMA $ 31.88 Mana Crypt R ME2 $ 31.71 Flooded Strand R ONS $ 31.47 Sneak Attack R UZ $ 31.11 Noble Hierarch R CON $ 31.06 True-Name Nemesis R C13 $ 30.65 Mishra's Workshop R ME4 $ 30.57 Cryptic Command R LRW $ 29.44 Flusterstorm R CMD $ 29.34 Voice of Resurgence M DGM $ 28.74 Tropical Island R ME3 $ 28.32 Mana Drain R ME3 $ 28.14 Threads of Disloyalty R BOK $ 27.31 Toxic Deluge R C13 $ 26.19 Tropical Island R ME4 $ 26.10 Dark Confidant M MMA $ 25.79 Sphinx's Revelation M RTR $ 25.58 Dark Confidant R RAV $ 25.40

The big number is the retail price of a playset (4 copies) of every card available on MTGO. Assuming you bought the least expensive version available, the cost of owning a playset of every card on MTGO you can own is $26,354. That’s down about $80 from where we were last week.

Weekly Highlights:

Work this week. No Magic, and no time to find cool Magic articles. Hopefully next week. On Saturday, though, I will be at the Wisconsin States at Gnome Games in Green Bay. Please join me.

PRJ

“one million words” on MTGO

This series is an ongoing tribute to Erik “Hamtastic: Friborg.