Welcome back to The Modern Perspective State of the Program! Having a chance to helm PureMTGO's flagship series is a really rare opportunity, so when Josh opened it up for the other writers, I decided to dust off the ol' writing fingers and give it a try. However, since Josh was letting us put our own unique spin on the column, this was my chance to try some very different things. While the content is still the same formula that Pete has honed over the years, I wanted to give the article some functionality and formatting that it hasn't had before.

Think of this week's SotP as the Future Sight boarder version of SotP: it plays the same, but it certainly doesn't look the same.

This is your State of the Program for September 30, 2016.

[For the best viewing experience on a phone, I suggest holding it horizontally.]

NEWS

The September 26th Banned and Restricted Announcement: A very brief 'No changes to any format.' was the verdict on Monday. This stunned a few player groups, but none more than the Pauper community, who were anticipating a ban for Peregrine Drake.

New Prizes Ahoy! - Treasure Chests: Wizards is going to implement a new prize payout called Treasure Chests that will randomly distribute prize cards when opened. What could you find inside of your Treasure Chest?

You are guaranteed one of the following:

Curated Cards: Selected by Magic R&D for their desirability on MTGO. (Includes Kaladesh Inventions and the Power Nine!)

Selected by Magic R&D for their desirability on MTGO. (Includes Kaladesh Inventions and the Power Nine!) Modern-Set Rares and Mythic Rares: Any regular rare or mythic that appears in a Modern legal set.

Any regular rare or mythic that appears in a Modern legal set. Play Points: Varying amounts of Play Points. (No minimum/maximums were mentioned.)

Most Treasure Chests will also contain two Standard-set commons or uncommons, but those could be replaced at the following ratios:

1 in 4.5 Treasure Chests: one of the common/uncommon slots will be replaced by either a Curated Card or a Modern-set Rare/Mythic.

one of the common/uncommon slots will be replaced by either a Curated Card or a Modern-set Rare/Mythic. 1 in 239 Treasure Chests: both of the common/uncommon slots will be replaced by either a Curated Card or Modern-set Rare/Mythic.

The first crop of Curated Cards includes 635 cards(!!!), ranging from "Rishadan Port Ka-Ching" to "Zealous Persecution Pity Cry".

Treasure Chests will be awarded as prizes for Constructed Leagues, both Friendly and Competitive, or Vintage Daily Events starting at records of (3-x). Friendly Leagues will no longer award packs as a prize.

All 2017 MOCS Playoff Events will award Top 8 players with 25 Treasure Chests and 9th-50th place with 10 Treasure Chests in addition to the prizes already being awarded.

There are more details available in the original article, including a full prize breakdown of each event type, so I strongly encourage you to read over it!

Link to the article: Announcing Treasure Chests

Link to the Curated Card list: Treasure Chest Curated Card List

I'm going to talk about Treasure Chests briefly in the Opinion Section.

Redemption Periods Drastically Reduced: Starting with Kaladesh, the redemption period of a set will begin roughly 30 days after the set's release, but will only be open until the first redemption set of the next block is available. Wizards provided this handy graphic to demonstrate the new timeline:

This is a dramatic reduction to the previous redemption timeline, as some older sets have the possibility of redemption up until November of next year and beyond!

Link to the article: Magic Online Economy Changes

Link to the Redemption Schedule: Magic Online Product Release & Redemption

I'm going to talk about this change briefly in the Opinions Section as well.

Limited Entry Fee Changes and Rotation of Older Draft Sets: Starting with Kaladesh, the cost to enter Draft and Sealed events with Tickets or Play Points will be reduced.

New Draft Entry Fees:

12 Event Tickets

120 Play Points

3 Kaladesh boosters and 2 Event Tickets

New Sealed Event Entry Fees:

24 Event Tickets

240 Play Points

6 Kaladesh Booster and 4 Event Tickets

Also, the available sets that can be drafted will be amended to the current draft block and the previous draft block. That means with the release of Kaladesh, Shadows over Innistrad block will be the only other Standard legal draft set. SOI draft events will still cost their old entry fees, not the newly adjusted ones. There is other information concerning entry options, prize allocations, and more strewn about this original article.

Link to the article: Magic Online Kaladesh Event Changes

Keyboard Shortcuts Receive an Overhaul: Alli Medwin explains some of the changes, and challenges, the programmers faced with the cards of Kaladesh. The most important information in the article is a new default placement of the in-game shortcut keys. The F-Keys will be replaced by traditional number keys to decrease the amount of hand motion required in games. This should also make it easier for players using laptops to utilize shortcuts. The buttons will still be customizable, so whatever setting you currently have in place will remain. A new collapsible overlay at the bottom of the game screen will help both old and new players keep track of their button configuration.

Link to the article: Inventing Inventions

Kaladesh Prerelease Details: The prerelease events begin after the October 5th downtime. In addition to the lowered entry fees, as an extra incentive to play in a Prerelease Draft event, Wizards has added an extra prize pack for players that go undefeated. I added a chart for the Kaladesh events in the Timelines Section. If you want all of the details, you can check out the original article.

Link to the Kaladesh event Details: Magic Online Kaladesh Event Changes

Kaladesh Streamer Showdowns on October 7th: Watch as community favorites draft Kaladesh in two 8-Player Pods. It's a great chance to gain insight into the new format, or simply cheer on your favorite streamer!

POD 1 POD 2 Time: 1:00 p.m. PT / 8:00 p.m. UTC Time: 6:00 p.m. PT / 1:00 a.m. UTC Caleb Durward

LoadingReadyRun

Joe Losset

Melvin the Muppet

Paul Judd Pires

Travis Sowers

Wedge Athena

Derek Boyko

EM

Jamietopples

Noah Sandler

Gabe Reale

Ian Suzuki

** Last Chance to use 2016 QPs ** Modern MOCS Event on October 1st: The final Monthly Event of the 2016 MOCS Season will be held on October 01, 2016. Players with at least 35 QPs can enter this Modern format event. Any 2016 QPs leftover in player's accounts will be removed during the October 5th downtime.

New Graphic for the 2017 Qualifier Points: Now that QPs are good for the whole year of MOCS events, the MTGO team gave them a brand new design:

Also, now that there is only one QP type, the "Qualifier Points" filter will be removed from the Collection Scene. QPs will be found in the "Tickets" filter after the October 5th downtime.

New Operating System Requirements for Running Magic Online: Windows Vista SP2 is no longer compatible with Magic Online after the infrastructure update on September 21, 2016. Users will have to upgrade to Windows 7 or higher to continue running Magic Online. (I'm a little curious why they didn't announce this ahead of time?)

A Brand New Format? Introducing 'Frontier': Japanese gaming stores Hareruya and BigMagic have teamed up to promote a new un-official format named 'Frontier'. The goal is to create a format that doesn't suffer from the unique price issues of Modern or Standard. The format will be non-rotating, starting at Magic 2015 to the present. To support this endeavor, the stores are throwing a free-to-enter tournament on October 30, 2016 with absurd prize support. First place will receive 10 booster boxes, one of each currently legal set, which is a hefty haul when admission costs nothing. As for the format itself, some players are very excited by the prospect, while others are concerned that the format faces a myriad of balance issues.

Link to the Reddit discussion: Post-Modern has begun: "Frontier"

OLD NEWS

Changes Announced to the 2017 MOCS Program: Lee Sharpe walks us through a variety of changes taking place for the MOCs events in the coming year. Changes include more monthly events, new MOCS Open events that don't require QPs for entry, adjustments to how QPs are distributed, less perks for Platinum Level Pros, the elimination of the MOCS promo card and more. I know a lot of the regulars here on PureMTGO actively try to qualify for the MOCs events, so I think this is an especially important read for anybody who pursues that goal.

Link to the article: 2017 Magic Online Championship Series

Premier Events receive an extension to 'Time Outs': The 'Time Out' match-loss period for Premier Level events has been increased from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. The change will give disconnected players more time to contact the technical support team to help them resolve any issues and get back to the event.

TIMELINES

Kaladesh Online Event Details: This is a timeline of events related to Kaladesh. Currently only the Prerelease and regular sealed events have been announced, but the Limited and Constructed Championships could be added in the future.

Start End Kaladesh Event Type 5-Oct-16 10-Oct-16 Prerelease Sealed Leagues 5-Oct-16 10-Oct-16 Prerelease Draft Leagues 10-Oct-16 24-Jan-17 Friendly Leagues 10-Oct-16 25-Jan-17 Competitive Leagues 10-Oct-16 25-Jan-17 6-2-2-2 Draft Leagues 10-Oct-16 ???? 8-4 Draft Queues (to be converted to 8-4 Draft Leagues)

Link to the Kaladesh event details: Magic Online Kaladesh Events (Yes, that article was crammed with info.)

Scheduled Items of Note: This is a collection of re-occurring and special events worth keeping track of.

Date Item and Notes 5-Oct All current Leagues end 10-Oct From the Vault: Lore online release 12-Oct No Downtime 8-Oct Legacy Challenge 29-Oct Vintage Power Nine Challenge 2-Nov No Downtime 9-Nov No Downtime 12-Nov Legacy Challenge 26-Nov Vintage Power Nine Challenge 30-Nov No Downtime 10-Dec Legacy Challenge 14-Dec No Downtime 31-Dec Vintage Power Nine Challenge

Link to the event Calendar: Magic Online Monthly Schedule

The Year of Modern Flashback Drafts: Re-live your first visit to Innistrad and the highly anticipated Return to Ravnica in the last quarter of 2016 as the Year of Modern Flashbacks draws to a close! There are also three Core Sets mixed in there, but come on, all we really care about is cracking a Liliana of the Veil, mythic angels and demons, and Guilds.

Start End Flashback Format 28-Sep 5-Oct 1x New Phyrexia 1x Mirrodin Besieged 1x Scars of Mirrodin 5-Oct 26-Oct Break for Kaladesh events 26-Oct 2-Nov 3x Innistrad 2-Nov 9-Nov 1x Dark Ascension 2x Innistrad 9-Nov 16-Nov 3x Magic 2012 16-Nov 23-Nov 3x Avacyn Restored 23-Nov 30-Nov 3x Magic 2013 30-Nov 7-Dec 3x Return to Ravnica 7-Dec 14-Dec 3x Gatecrash 14-Dec 21-Dec 1x Dragon's Maze 1x Gatecrash 1x Return to Ravnica 21-Dec 28-Dec 3x Magic 2014

Link to the event details: Year of Modern Flashbacks

OPINION SECTION

Prize Lotteries and Disconnecting from Digital?

I was originally going to write about some easy ways I found to overcome the difficulties I face being a Magic player with a kid, but thanks to the large amount of news that was dumped on us Thursday, I just didn't have the time. (Sorry, Josh, maybe I'll find a way to expand it into a whole article?) However, I did want to take some time to share my knee-jerk reaction to Treasure Chests and the changes to the Redemption Policy.

Treasure Chests: First off, why are there 635 Curated Cards!? It's great that they found a way to get more copies of Black Lotus and Rishadan Port into the system, but will it matter if the randomizer decides to spit out Atog over and over again? If you were always going to get a Curated Card, I could see the purpose in having so many, but since you aren't even guaranteed a Curated Card, it seems particularly unfair to give you an uncommon that has been printed multiple times. I'm sorry, but regular, old Circle of Protection: Red should never be included in a "super exclusive prize" category! Making the Curated Card count that high also seems like more work for the programmers? Instead of having to label a ton of cards as 'Curated', they could have chosen less of them and then adjusted the randomizer calculations? If they want these Treasure Chest prizes to feel super special, then they absolutely should not load up the Curated slots with so many unexciting cards. Every Chest doesn't have to contain Engineered Explosives to be interesting, but 635 possibilities is a bit too many.

In the same vein, couldn't they have narrowed down the Rare/Mythic range a little more too? There are a lot of sets across all of Modern, and a lot of them contain some truly bad cards that can fill those spots. Making the pool this big all at once makes playing the Power Ball look easy. Again, I'm not saying that it should select nothing but Future Sight and Innistrad, but I would like to see them narrow down the range a bit.

One idea would be to have it locked to certain sets at a time that often rotated. For example, a month consisting of Mirrodin, Lorwyn, Khans, and Theros is still a very deep pool without leaving us stranded in an ocean of sets. Heck, when they are feeling saucy, they could give us extremely enticing weeks to whip us into a frenzy. Two weeks' worth of Time Spiral block makes that lottery look awfully juicy, but even then there are still a lot of rares you could open instead of a Tarmogoyf.

I'm not sure how I feel about the way they are distributing Treasure Chests. I usually frequent the Friendly Modern leagues, and while it's nice that I'll get something extra for going (3-2), I did enjoy winning packs when I managed a better record. Often I'd win enough packs to join some drafts, which is the only time I'd bother to do so. Now I'm really not sure when I'll draft? I wonder if others feel the same.

Overall, I think they have left themselves a lot of room to adjust the Treasure Chest system, so while it might not be perfect now, they can certainly work on it.

New Redemption Policy: I can't even begin to imagine the chaos this could cause to the singles market going forward? Will people rush to redeem sets, or will this curb people's enthusiasm? How short of a deadline is "too short"?

The one thing I was considering is that this is a huge step towards finally unwinding MTGO from the paper game. The Redemption feature was great for convincing people to "invest in Magic twice" back in the day, but it's also hampered the ways they could develop the game as a purely digital experience. In 2016, most consumers have become conditioned to accept "only owning a digital copy" of most things. Would Magic be any different? If they finally separated Digital from Paper, would that make the game cheaper to play online? Could drafts become cheaper if we no longer had to run alongside the MSRP of paper packs? What might our "stand alone" digital future be?

I'm sorry that the opinion section couldn't be longer, but I do really want to hear what people have to say about these big changes to the platform! Be sure to post a comment below or on Facebook and let us know what you think!

JUDGE QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Pete has been a Judge for many, many years: I was a Rules Advisor for a couple of years to help a new store that was building up a player base. Needless to say, Pete has a lot more experience dealing with tricky rules questions than I do. However, much like the rest of SotP, there was something I have wanted to see done a little differently in the Judge Question section, so you're going to get a relatively easy question this week. I'm just going to underhand pitch it nice and easy over the plate.

Q: You control an Exalted Angel enchanted with an Armadillo Cloak and an Unflinching Courage. You attack your opponent and they block with a Pristine Angel. How much life, if any, do you gain?

-VS-

CLICK HERE TO REVEAL THE ANSWER

A: The answer is 12. The damage is calculated as follows: You assign 4 damage to the Pristine Angel and then 4 damage to your opponent. The 4 damage assigned to Pristine Angel is prevented by its Protection ability so you gain 0 life. You gain 4 life due to the Lifelink granted by Unflinching Courage You gain 4 life from the Exalted Angel's own damage trigger. You gain 4 life from the battle damage trigger granted by Armadillo Cloak. Like I said, pretty easy.

CUTTING EDGE TECH

Standard: The first tournaments of Kaladesh Standard will be held this weekend. I haven't played Standard competitively in years, but I always enjoy these 'Week 1' SCG events: they remind me of how States used to be. States was always one of the first big events after a fall set entered the format and there was still this air of the unexpected about them; such a great time.

* Ahem * Sorry; I was getting nostalgic.

While we don't know what will actually do well or not this weekend, judging by the articles written this week, it's a safe bet you'll see these cards:

Modern: If you are sad that the trinity of Collected Company, Reflector Mage, and (Spell Queller:EMN) can't hang out together in Standard anymore, then you might be interested in this Bant deck. Reflector Mage does a surprising amount of work in Modern, even if he can't stop a Boros Charm to the face.



Legacy: I think Pete may have showcased Aluren Combo recently, but this caught my eye with its inclusion of Whirlpool Rider. I really didn't think I'd have a reason to read that card again...



Vintage: There was a Vintage "Power Nine" Challenge this past Saturday, so there were several cool lists to choose from. Since there wasn't a Standard deck this week, I'm going to use the extra space to showcase more Vintage decks. I apologize in advance if I don't get the correct names on these decks; I know that Vintage has its own naming conventions, but I don't know exactly what they are...

The first list was the winner of the event, using a Monastery Mentor deck with a Kamigawa twist.



Next is a Doomsday combo list. If you've never seen one of these in action before, it's pretty cool. There have been many discussions about making the "proper Doomsday pile", but I really want to see the ones that win with Laboratory Maniac.



Last, but certainly not least, I'd like to congratulate our own STSUNG for making it to the Top 8! Jace, Vryn's Prodigy might be rotating out of Standard, but the card has proven to be a powerhouse in many other formats. By the time you read this, there might already be a tournament report up on the site, but if not, I hope we get one soon!

PRICES

All prices are from MTGOTraders.com. For cards with multiple versions, the version linked on my price tables was the cheapest price actually purchasable when the card was added. I did not use outdated Alternate Art or Promotional Card prices. Be sure to check all versions of a card, including foils, for the best available prices.

Standard: The list is a little smaller because I removed the rotating cards. Don't worry, at least one of them made it onto another table. I'm not sure which format Jace, Vryn's Prodigy should end up on, if any? I'll leave that decision up to Pete.

I did list the Standard cards differently: I grouped by set and then listed them alphabetically. The theory is that if Pete would continue to use this format each week, it would be easier to spot which cards are dropping in price as their rotation approaches. Good, bad, indifferent? Let us know.

Modern: Being a Modern focused player, I switched up some cards on the Modern table. I removed some of the cards that are expensive, but aren't used very often (looking at you Auriok Champion) and added several cards that are 'staples' of the format. This means Arcbound Ravager, Collected Company and Snapcaster Mage made my list, even though they are "inexpensive". All-star sideboard cards, like Engineered Explosives, that have, no pun intended, exploded in price recently, also made the cut.

Vintage and Legacy: I added Batterskull and Griselbrand to this table, since I think they both see regular play more often in these formats. It helps to have support cards like Stoneforge Mystic, Show and Tell, and Oath of Druids cheating them into play.

I apologize that I can't provide information for the Cards Over $25 or the Big Number. Maybe the next time I handle SotP I'll get that information too.

WRAP UP

I didn't get to play much Magic this week, because writing State of the Program takes up a huge chunk of time. It's hard to believe just how much goes into this article each week, between pricing, deck lists, not to mention the amount of news Wizards released on Thursday. (Please, Wizards, for the love of Pete, announce more things on Tuesday.) I can't remember the last time I've been to the official Wizards sites this many times in a single week. I've lost track of how many times I typed "Treasure Chets" today. Also, there was a point Wednesday night where I had knocked some of the table lines out of place, including the decklists, and had to quickly dig through the html to find out what went wrong.

SotP is a pretty rough gig.

It's also really amazing and I'm glad I finally got the chance to do it. Guess that just leaves a Preview Card, right, Josh?

And so the curtain closes on this alternate reality State of the Program. Be sure to chime in on Facebook or in the Comments Section to let me know if there were things you really liked or disliked about some of my ideas? You might even see some of the changes adopted in the future? (Or it might be a whole lot of Steamflogger Boss, who knows?)

Until next time,

- Chris