State of the Program for August 26th 2016

In the News:

Leagues Updated: Wizards has announced a few more tweaks for MTGO leagues. Wizards has eliminated the pop-up that says “you will be paying. & Your product is locked” at join. Players know this already. Wizards is also replacing standings with leaderboards, which list the players by the number of leagues they have 5-0ed. Wizards also announced that they are working on improving the pairing algorithm, and – see the following:

DRAFT Leagues: Wizards is rolling out draft leagues. You get to draft in a real, live 8-man draft, but play out your matches over time. These draft leagues will replace Swiss drafts and 6-2-2-2 drafts. Draft leagues will not be restricted to playing within pods. Details Wizards is rolling out draft leagues. You get to draft in a real, live 8-man draft, but play out your matches over time. These draft leagues will replace Swiss drafts and 6-2-2-2 drafts. Draft leagues will not be restricted to playing within pods. Details here

“You Make the Cube” Contest: For years and years, players have asked for the ability to use their own cubes online. That still isn’t happening, except for one lucky player. Wizards has tried designing their own cubes, had Randy Buehler design the cube, and is now holding a contest. You can submit your cube list between now and September 15th. Wizards will select the best 4 lists, help the submitters tweak those lists, then let players vote on them. Oh, and prizes are involved. Details For years and years, players have asked for the ability to use their own cubes online. That still isn’t happening, except for one lucky player. Wizards has tried designing their own cubes, had Randy Buehler design the cube, and is now holding a contest. You can submit your cube list between now and September 15. Wizards will select the best 4 lists, help the submitters tweak those lists, then let players vote on them. Oh, and prizes are involved. Details here

FNM Promos Announced: Wizards has announced the FNM foils for the rest of 2016. This announcement affects only the paper world directly, but since FNM foils generally become store or event promos online, this is of interest to us. Here are the new promos. (We already know Flaying Tendrils is next month’s MOPR promo.)

Eldritch Moon Championships on Now: The limited Champs are this weekend. Hopefully you have already qualified, because qualifiers are almost done as you read this. The Standard Champs is next week, with the qualifiers end of next week.

Worlds Coming Next Week: Worlds starts a bit after next downtime (okay, Thursday, a long bit.) Coverage will be on Wizards’ website and Twitch.tv. Thursday is draft and Standard, Friday is all draft, and Saturday is Modern. The top 4 playoff will be on Sunday, and will be Standard. The roster of players is Worlds starts a bit after next downtime (okay, Thursday, a long bit.) Coverage will be on Wizards’ website and Twitch.tv. Thursday is draft and Standard, Friday is all draft, and Saturday is Modern. The top 4 playoff will be on Sunday, and will be Standard. The roster of players is here

The Timeline:

This is a list of things we have been promised, or we just want to see coming back. Another good source for dates and times is the MTGO calendar and the weekly blog, while the best source for known bugs is the Known Issues List . For quick reference, here are some major upcoming events. In addition, there are either one or two online PTQs each weekend, with qualifiers running the three days prior to the PTQ.

Item: date and notes

Power Nine Challenge: Last Saturday of the month, at 11am Pacific. Next one August 27th.

Legacy Challenge: Second Saturday of the month, at 11am Pacific. Next one September 10th.

No Downtime on these Dates: August 31st, September 14th, October 12th, November 2nd, 9th and 30th and December 14th.

Eldritch Moon Championship Finals - Limited: Saturday, August 27. Details : Saturday, August 27. Details here

Eldritch Moon Championship Finals - Standard: Sunday, September 2. Details : Sunday, September 2. Details here

League End Dates: all current leagues end October 5th.

Duel Decks: Nissa vs. Ob Nixilus: paper release September 2016.

Kaladesh Prerelease: October 7-10, on sale October 10th. Product code KLD.

From the Vault Lore: releases online October 10, 2016.

Commander 2016: paper release November 2016. No MTGO release, but key cards will be released online within another product.

Aether Revolt: January 2017 release

Flashback Schedule:

Flashback drafts are 10Tix / 100 Play Points / 2 Tix plus product, not Phantom, single elim and pay out in play points: 200 for first, 100 for second, 50 for third and fourth.

2 Zendikar, Worldwake: August 24 to August 31

Triple Rise of the Eldrazi: August 31 to September 7

Triple Magic 2011: September 7 to September 14

Triple Scars of Mirrodin: September 14 to September 21

Mirrodin Besieged, 2 Scars of Mirrodin: September 21 to September 28

New Phyrexia, Mirrodin Besieged, Scars of Mirrodin: September 28 to October 5

(pause for Kaladesh release events)

Triple Innistrad: October 26 to November 2

Dark Ascension, 2 Innistrad: November 2 to November 9

Triple Magic 2012: November 9 to November 16

Triple Avacyn Restored: November 16 to November 23

Triple Magic 2013: November 23 to November 30

Triple Return to Ravnica: November 30 to December 7

Triple Gatecrash: December 7 to December 14

Dragon’s Maze, Gatecrash, Return to Ravnica: December 14 to December 21

Flashback This Week: Flashback drafts will feature triple Rise of the Eldrazi next week. The money cards in the set are Flashback drafts will feature triple Rise of the Eldrazi next week. The money cards in the set are Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Linvala.

Opinion Section: Losing the Desire, a/k/a no time for Magic

I have been, over the last year or so, turning into one of those Magic commentators who don’t actually play the game. That’s not deliberate, and I wish it wasn’t so, but I just don’t play as much as I should. What is worse is that I am (almost) playing as much as I want to.

What went wrong?

First off, it’s partly me. I have always hated losing much more than I savored winning. Losing bugs me, a lot. Winning does not give enough of a boost to offset that, so I need to get enough other plusses out of Magic to make playing worthwhile. Those other plusses include the social aspects, the mental challenges of deckbuilding and battling tough matches, and all the rest of the trappings of Magic. Fairly often, this is enough. Right now, it is not.

Part of this is the story-line, or lack thereof. Magic lost me, on that account, with the whole Mirrodin becomes New Phyrexia thing. Phyrexian Oil felt, to me at least, like cancer. Mark Rosewater described it as a disease, and it was generally fatal. Then the entire world of Mirrodin succumbed. I lost a very close relative to cancer, and that made the concept of a whole world dying of the disease way too awful to contemplate. I stopped caring about the Magic storyline at that point, and have never got the interest back.

I am also not excited about the art. That’s just a personal preference, but I actually liked the weird art – things like Stasis and anything by the Foglios . I understand why Wizards has a standard for Magic art, but those standards just don’t excite me. But there’s no accounting for taste.

Part of this is my situation at the moment. Work is enormously stressful right now. I am still doing my work plus that of two co-workers who retired (9 months ago). I work for state government, under a governor who has placed restrictions on hiring, so my coworkers are not being replaced. I really believe the job is worth doing, and if I don’t do it, it won’t get done. That means I have to do it. That, plus family stuff and so forth, has been really stressful and time consuming. I manage to get by, but I have been operating on way too little sleep for months now. Averaging 4-6 hours a night, night after night, is making me cranky, and that comes through in my writing. (Sorry about that.) It’s also not healthy. It even affects my playing – I have twice timed out of an event because I fell asleep at the keyboard.

The lack of sleep and stress also means I have very little patience for bad beats and bad Magic. I have joined a couple drafts and a few leagues. I play, but then something weird happens – like getting killed on turn five or six by Decimator of the Provinces in two sequential matches – so I log off for a week or more. I seem to be getting killed by bomb rares a lot more this set. I’m not sure that is because of the set. It could be that I am getting rusty, and I just miss the opportunities to win the game before I lose to the bomb rares. Or maybe they are not bombs, just cards that are really good if you let a game go on too long enough and they can get on line.

As for Standard, as much as I like playing green decks based around cards like Survival of the Fittest and on through Collected Company, I am really sick of Bant Company decks from both sides. I doubt I will play any Standard until the next set arrives. I don’t want to play Bant Company, and I cannot brew up something that beats it often enough. All that makes constructed Magic fall into the “life’s too short” category, at least for me, for now.

The time crunch is really eating into my real-life Magic as well. I have a deal that lets me draft for free at my local store’s FNM every week, and I have only managed to attend two or three FNMs this year. I got to play in one real life draft at GenCon and it was awesome, but just one. With a little luck, I might get into a couple at GP Indy this weekend. We will see.

Real life drafts are great because of the social interactions. I have more time for MTGO than paper, but MTGO does not meet the need for social interactions. I always start each match with a “hi, good luck, have fun,” but less than one in ten players responds at all. I have heard some of the grinders and MTGO streamers explain why they don’t respond, and I understand their reasoning. I get it. MTGO is not a place for social interactions. It is a place for pros, grinders and tournament practice. It is a place for competitive Magic. It is not a place that caters to casual players. And, I am discovering, it is not a place for players like me.

The next couple weeks are going to be worse. I will be working GP Indy, which is the last of the fun events I have planned. After that, I need to devote more time to work (big crunch coming), and to family matters. All this means that I probably won’t be able to get a SotP completed for the next couple weeks. (I think. If I get stuck on some conference calls and can crunch numbers while the lawyers are off on tangents, maybe I’ll get something done.)

Just to be clear – this is not goodbye. I wrote my first for-pay article in April, 1999, and have been writing weekly Magic content ever since. I’m not planning on stopping. However, one night last weekend I got a full eight hours of sleep, and it was glorious. I also roughed out my must-do-now list, and it is four pages, single spaced, small font. I cannot fit writing about Magic onto that list, so I’ll see you in couple weeks. I’m planning on not writing next week or two.

Sorry about that, too.

Judge Question of the Week:

I have been training new judges for many years, and part of that training involves setting out scenarios and problems that teach various parts of the rules. They start simple – i.e. a creature with trample is blocked by a creature with protection – and get harder as they go. The goal is to determine what areas of the rules I need to teach, and what my candidate already knows. And to have some fun. Here we go.

You are in turn three of extra turns in the sixth round of GP Indy. The format is Modern. You cast Time Warp and copy it twice. All three Time Warps (the original and both copies) resolve. What happens?

As always, there are no relevant cards or situations not mentioned. You cannot win the game this turn, and you won’t be decked on your first extra turn. The answer is at the end of the article.

Cutting Edge Tech:

Standard: Last weekend saw yet more of what Chewie on Monday Night Magic calls [rude noise], and the rest of the world calls Bant Company. I think Chewie has it right. Anyway, here’s the winner of the SCG Invitational.





Modern: The SCG invitational is a multi-format event. The Top 16 Modern decklists are here.



Legacy: SCG also ran a Legacy Classic event. It was not huge, but at least the event had something interesting. If the cost of dual and other Legacy lands has got you down, try this. It doesn’t run lands. Period.

Vintage: VSL is in the first playoff, but I haven’t had time to watch any of it. Hopefully, you have had more opportunity.

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 MTGOTradersBuyBot(#) (they have buybots 1-4). I have bought cards from MTGOTraders for over a decade now, and have never been overcharged or disappointed.

Standard staples: Standard were down this week. It appears that I am not the only one who is tired of Bant Company.

Modern staples: Modern showed some volatility this week. Nothing too unusual, given that this is Modern.

Legacy and Vintage: Legacy and Vintage are all over the place this week. Some of this may reflect the reprints in paper, but the rest? I have no idea why City of Traitors dropped 22% this week.

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.

Complete Set Price Last Week Change % Change Battle for Zendikar $56.84 $59.97 ($3.13) -5% Dragons of Tarkir $57.38 $66.12 ($8.74) -13% Eldritch Moon $87.26 $117.24 ($29.98) -26% Magic Origins $76.30 $92.05 ($15.75) -17% Oath of the Gatewatch $95.60 $105.52 ($9.92) -9% Shadows over Innistrad $66.26 $72.59 ($6.33) -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. I still can’t decide whether to sell my Ports. I paid practically nothing for them, but I still play them occasionally and I have no idea whether or if they will ever be reprinted.

Name Set Rarity Price Rishadan Port MM Rare $ 242.43 Black Lotus VMA Bonus $ 115.98 Liliana of the Veil ISD Mythic Rare $ 104.18 Misdirection MM Rare $ 85.02 Mox Sapphire VMA Bonus $ 62.65 Tangle Wire NE Rare $ 52.25 Tarmogoyf MMA Mythic Rare $ 51.36 Show and Tell UZ Rare $ 51.32 Tarmogoyf MM2 Mythic Rare $ 50.33 Tarmogoyf FUT Rare $ 49.10 Exploration UZ Rare $ 46.67 Gaea's Cradle UZ Rare $ 45.05 Engineered Explosives MMA Rare $ 42.16 Ancestral Recall VMA Bonus $ 41.42 Cavern of Souls AVR Rare $ 41.35 Force of Will MED Rare $ 40.59 Wasteland TPR Rare $ 40.28 Wasteland TE Uncommon $ 39.63 Voice of Resurgence DGM Mythic Rare $ 39.49 Engineered Explosives 5DN Rare $ 39.35 Wasteland EMA Rare $ 38.11 Food Chain MM Rare $ 37.98 Volcanic Island ME3 Rare $ 36.58 Containment Priest PZ1 Rare $ 36.31 City of Traitors EX Rare $ 36.24 Time Walk VMA Bonus $ 35.26 Underground Sea ME4 Rare $ 34.72 Unmask MM Rare $ 34.67 Infernal Tutor DIS Rare $ 34.25 Ensnaring Bridge ST Rare $ 33.51 Liliana, the Last Hope EMN Mythic Rare $ 33.37 Volcanic Island ME4 Rare $ 33.05 Lion's Eye Diamond MI Rare $ 32.92 Ancestral Vision DD2 Rare $ 32.03 Containment Priest C14 Rare $ 31.65 Moat MED Rare $ 31.07 Mox Jet VMA Bonus $ 30.87 Griselbrand AVR Mythic Rare $ 30.34 True-Name Nemesis PZ1 Mythic Rare $ 29.85 Scapeshift MOR Rare $ 29.28 Grove of the Burnwillows FUT Rare $ 29.04 Mox Opal MM2 Mythic Rare $ 29.04 Doomsday WL Rare $ 28.81 Mox Pearl VMA Bonus $ 28.62 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy ORI Mythic Rare $ 28.48 Horizon Canopy FUT Rare $ 28.41 City of Traitors TPR Rare $ 28.40 Back to Basics UZ Rare $ 28.35 Undiscovered Paradise VI Rare $ 28.03 Blood Moon MMA Rare $ 28.02 Underground Sea ME2 Rare $ 28.02 Ancestral Vision TSP Rare $ 27.94 Blood Moon 8ED Rare $ 27.89 Mox Opal SOM Mythic Rare $ 27.75 Inkmoth Nexus MBS Rare $ 27.48 Blood Moon 9ED Rare $ 27.40 Mox Ruby VMA Bonus $ 27.28 Force of Will EMA Mythic Rare $ 26.80 Scalding Tarn ZEN Rare $ 26.58 Mox Emerald VMA Bonus $ 26.55 Ensnaring Bridge 8ED Rare $ 26.13 Celestial Colonnade WWK Rare $ 25.95

The big number is the retail price of a playset (4 copies) of every card available on MTGO. Assuming you bought the least expensive versions available, the cost of owning a playset of every card on MTGO is $ 25,900. That brings us back to where we were two weeks ago, so maybe last week’s big swing was me screwing up a calculation somewhere. I do have to manually remove booster pack prices, foils, promos and so forth from the list of 43k items in the MTGOTraders.com store. Maybe I missed something. On the other hand, the redeem price of all the sets is down, as are Modern prices.

Weekly Highlights:

No Magic this week. It’s well after midnight. I’m in a hotel in the middle of Illinois, on my way to GP Indy. I have to get up in about 4 hours, to drive the rest of the way and arrive for my judge shift by10am. I will be changing time zones, the wrong way. Guess I have to get this article finished, submitted and formatted.

PRJ

“One Million Words” and “3MWords” on MTGO

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

HammyBot Super Sale: HammyBot was set up to sell off Erik Friborg’s collection, with all proceeds going to his wife and son. So far, HammyBot has raised over $8,000, but there are a lot of cards left in the collection. Those cards are being sold at MTGOTrader’s Buy Price.

Answer to the Judge Question of the Week:

You are in turn three of extra turns in the sixth round of GP Indy. The format is Modern. You cast Time Warp and copy it twice. All three Time Warps (the original and both copies) resolve. What happens?

Once time has been called, the active player finishes their turn, and there are five additional turns. By casting Time Warps on your third turn, you get both of the remaining turns. However, there are only two additional turns available, so the third Time Warp will not get you anything. However, you are still better off that your opponent, who won’t get any more turns at all.