State of the Program for October 28th 2016

In the News

Kaladesh Championship Events Beginning: The Kaladesh Limited Championship preliminaries are underway. The limited Championship will be the Saturday after this goes up (November 5 th .) The Standard KLD Championship will be the following weekend on Sunday. Details here .

November MOPR Promos Announced: Wizards has given us something to warm us up in the cold (around here) winter months. The November store promo will be an alt art Rift Bolt, and the event promo an alt art Fiery Temper. These promos have some value so nice job Wizards.

Four Color Commander Teams: The commander 2016 decks are being previewed, and will soon be on sale in the paper world. One new mechanic is the ability to team or pair certain two color commanders to give your deck a four-color color identity. This mechanic (named Partner) would probably require enough additional programming that it probably won’t appear online. (just my guess). The Commander 2016 decks will not be available online, but selected cards will be available in Treasure Chests. The card image gallery for Commander 2016 is The commander 2016 decks are being previewed, and will soon be on sale in the paper world. One new mechanic is the ability to team or pair certain two color commanders to give your deck a four-color color identity. This mechanic (named Partner) would probably require enough additional programming that it probably won’t appear online. (just my guess). The Commander 2016 decks will not be available online, but selected cards will be available in Treasure Chests. The card image gallery for Commander 2016 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 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.

Recurring Events Timing Power Nine Challenge Last Saturday of the month, at 11am Pacific Legacy Challenge Second Saturday of the month, at 11am Pacific No Downtime November 2 nd , 9 th , 23 rd and 30 th and December 14 th Extended Downtime (none announced so far) Current Leagues End January

Upcoming and Ongoing Events Begins Ends From the Vault: Lore On sale now January 4, 2017 Kaladesh Limited Championship November 5 th Details here Kaladesh Standard Championship November 13 th Details here Kaladesh Sealed MOCS events October 29 th , December 4 th , 11 th , 18 th and 30 th . Details here Standard MOCS events November 6 th & 25 th Details here Modern MOCS events January 7 th & 21 st Details here . Amonkhet Spring, 2017 release Aether Revolt prerelease January 27th January30th Modern Masters 2017 Edition MTGO release March 23rd

Flashback Schedule:

Flashback drafts cost 10Tix or 100 Play Points or 2 Tix plus product. They are you-keep-the- cards, not Phantom. These are single elimination events that pay out in play points: 200 for first, 100 for second, and 50 for third and fourth place.

Format Begins Ends Triple Innistrad October 26 November 2 Dark Ascension, 2 Innistrad November 2 November 9 Triple Magic 2012 November 9 November 16 Triple Avacyn Restored November 16 November 23 Triple Magic 2013 November 23 November 30 Triple Return to Ravnica: November 30 December 7 Triple Gatecrash December 7 December 14 Dragon’s Maze, Gatecrash, Return to Ravnica December 14 December 21

Opinion Section: Bribery

Last weekend, another high-level Magic player was disqualified for bribery. You would think people would learn.

Bribery is defined as the act of giving money, goods or other forms of recompense to a recipient in exchange for an alteration of their behavior. In Magic terms, that means offering something – anything – of value in return for a concession.



The Magic Infraction Procedure Guide says that offering a bribe is a disqualification offense. Offering a bribe means conveying the idea that you, the player, would give something of value in return for the concession. Players keep asking if there are some “magic words” that can get around the rule. No, there are not. If you have said or done anything that gives your opponent reason to expect something of value in return for a concession, you have now conveyed the idea. You have offered a bribe.



Worse yet, if you are trying to be opaque, it is highly likely that the judge will figure out what you are implying before your opponent does. Judges don’t like to DQ players, with all the headaches and paperwork involved, but we will.

Players also like to get cute, and try to dance around the bribe. But before you call a judge over and ask, loudly and in front of the opponent, “Judge, can I tell my opponent that I am a very generous person?” Think about how likely that something like that would ever come up in conversation during a match. I have been playing and watching Magic being played at all levels for almost 20 years. I have heard “I a generous person” or variations on that theme, just three times – always on turn five in extra time, and always in matches that had no winner.



Players, please, don’t so this. We all understand that sometimes a lot can be riding on winning a match of Magic – a money finish, byes, a qualification, Pro Player status, etc. – but you need to earn those rewards by winning matches of Magic. You are not allowed to buy them. Period.



Here endeth the sermon.

Cutting Edge Tech

Standard: I’m going to do a deep dive on Standard this week. This is the third weekend with large Standard tournaments since the rotation. Week one we had an SCG Open which was dominated by RW vehicles. The Pro Tour metagame included aggro, midrange, ramp, control and combo, but not RW vehicles. Last weekend, we had two Standard GPs – one in Providence and one in Kuala Lumpur. Aetherworks Marvel was a huge portion of the day one metagame at the Pro Tour, but fell off on day two, and failed to appear at either GP. The two GPs also had markedly different metagames. Here’s a breakdown, followed by the two winning decks.

Deck GP Prov. Top 64 GP Prov. Top 8 GP KL Top 64 GP KL Top 8 UW Flash 22 1 28 6 RW Vehicles 11 2 6 BG Delirium 9 4 8 Mardu Vehicles 5 7 2 BG Aggro 4 BR Zombies 5 1 4 Jeskai Control 1 2

Both GPs had a number of one-off decks. They make up the remainder of the Top 64 list.

One of the breakout decks at the PT was Dynavolt Tower / spells, but that deck put in one Top 64 appearance in one GP.



GP Kuala Lumpur was clearly a heliport. The Top 8 included 64 copies of Smuggler’s Copter (the maximum possible.) Those Copters were thoroughly checked out (and crewed) by 64 Thraben Inspectors. Everyone in the minivan indeed. The GP KL Top 8 was 75% UW Flash, but “Mardu Vehicles” – actually more of a RWB humans deck splashing blue – pushed past the fliers.



GP Providence was a bit different. UW Flash was still a big part of the metagame, but the finals was a battle between a pair of GB Delirium decks. GB Delirium made up half the Top 8 in Providence.



First Place at Kuala Lumpur

Mardu Vehicles Fumiya Matsumoto GP Kuala Lumpur - 75 Cards Total Creature

3 (Depala, Pilot Exemplar:kld)

4 (Inventor's Apprentice:kld)

4 (Scrapheap Scrounger:kld)

4 (Thraben Inspector:soi)

4 (Toolcraft Exemplar:kld)

4 (Veteran Motorist:kld)

23 cards



Instant

4 (Harnessed Lightning:kld)

2 (Unlicensed Disintegration:kld)

6 cards



Planeswalker

2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

2 cards Vehicle

3 (Cultivator's Caravan:kld)

4 (Smuggler's Copter:kld)

7 cards

Land

4 (Aether Hub:kld)

4 (Concealed Courtyard:kld)

4 (Inspiring Vantage:kld)

3 (Mountain:kld)

3 (Plains:kld)

4 (Spirebluff Canal:kld)

22 cards

Sideboard

4 (Ceremonious Rejection)

2 (Fragmentize)

4 (Galvanic Bombardment)

2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

2 (Skysovereign, Consul Flagship)

1 (Unlicensed Disintegration)

15 cards



Second Place Kuala Lumpur

Modern: This week, I was looking for a deck I would like to play. I pulled this one from the Top 8 at the MOCS. I have liked Jund for years, and this looks like an interesting version.

Legacy: If you browse through the 5-0 decklists from the Legacy leagues, or the top finishing decks from the SCG events, you will probably see a fair amount of Colorless Eldrazi. The deck seems to be everywhere. Three of the five 5-0 decks from the most recent competitive league were also colorless Eldrazi. If you play Legacy, expect to face this.



Vintage: Eternal Weekend took place across the pond (form me, at least). About a hundred players battled it out. The Top 8 had a bunch of Garage decks (Garage = a shops deck with vehicles. Think it will catch on?) and a smattering of Eldrazi, but a fairly traditional Monastery Mentor deck won out in the end.



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 prices are doing about what you would expect. The prices of KLD rares are dropping as drafters add ever more copies to the card pool. Even the lands are under $5 apiece.

Modern staples: Modern prices have bounced around a bit this week. Collected Company has fallen off the table: it is being played, but isn’t that expensive.

Legacy and Vintage: Legacy and Vintage are also generally down, but the changes are not as dramatic as Modern. I have tweaked the table again this week. Jace, VP is gone – his value has stayed well below the $20 minimum for the table. Back to Basics is on the table – partly because it is expensive, but mainly because I have seen it played in serous matches.

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 $68.90 $55.16 $13.74 25% Eldritch Moon $116.75 $98.04 $18.71 19% Kaladesh $86.92 $112.47 ($25.55) -23% Oath of the Gatewatch $95.27 $78.44 $16.83 21% Shadows over Innistrad $60.18 $59.04 $1.14 2%

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. The list has shrunk one more card this week. In other “news,” Rishadan Port is still ridiculous.

Name Set Rarity Price Rishadan Port MM Rare $ 246.63 Black Lotus VMA Bonus $ 104.49 Liliana of the Veil ISD Mythic Rare $ 85.14 Misdirection MM Rare $ 71.99 Tangle Wire NE Rare $ 53.99 Show and Tell UZ Rare $ 52.34 Food Chain MM Rare $ 47.05 Exploration UZ Rare $ 43.95 Tarmogoyf MM2 Mythic Rare $ 43.56 Tarmogoyf MMA Mythic Rare $ 43.27 Tarmogoyf FUT Rare $ 42.57 Mox Sapphire VMA Bonus $ 40.19 Gaea's Cradle UZ Rare $ 37.00 Engineered Explosives 5DN Rare $ 36.10 Engineered Explosives MMA Rare $ 36.07 Infernal Tutor DIS Rare $ 35.86 Wasteland TE Uncommon $ 35.69 Liliana, the Last Hope EMN Mythic Rare $ 35.30 Wasteland TPR Rare $ 35.22 Back to Basics UZ Rare $ 34.68 Blood Moon 8ED Rare $ 34.52 Wasteland EMA Rare $ 34.16 Ensnaring Bridge ST Rare $ 33.65 Cavern of Souls AVR Rare $ 33.48 Blood Moon MMA Rare $ 33.46 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar BFZ Mythic Rare $ 33.34 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet OGW Mythic Rare $ 33.05 Blood Moon 9ED Rare $ 33.01 Unmask MM Rare $ 32.59 Wasteland EXP Mythic Rare $ 32.00 Ensnaring Bridge 8ED Rare $ 31.24 Containment Priest PZ1 Rare $ 31.00 Ensnaring Bridge 7E Rare $ 30.93 Moat MED Rare $ 30.57 Force of Will MED Rare $ 30.46 Voice of Resurgence DGM Mythic Rare $ 29.96 Lion's Eye Diamond MI Rare $ 29.89 Containment Priest C14 Rare $ 29.78 True-Name Nemesis PZ1 Mythic Rare $ 29.72 Ancestral Recall VMA Bonus $ 28.44 Doomsday WL Rare $ 26.80 Volcanic Island ME3 Rare $ 26.59 Undiscovered Paradise VI Rare $ 26.39 Golgari Grave-Troll DDJ Rare $ 25.86

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 $ 22,340. That is up about $75 from last week.

Weekly Highlights

Not a ton of Magic this week. I watched the finals from GP Providence, which was pretty interesting. The players knew how that was ending, but it caught the coverage folks by surprise. Worth a watch.

I watched it while playing a moderately bad deck in draft league. I think I made a few mispicks early, but ended up with decent RG energy beatdown deck splashing black for Unlicensed Disintegration and the activation on a Scrapheap Scrounger. The first match was long and interesting. I pulled it out. Match two I mulliganned to six – three land and three spells both games. I then proceeded to make my first 9 land drops before dying with land in hand. Both games. In the third match, it happened again – the same mulligan into 3 and 3, then made the first 8 land drops. The fact that my opponent had turn two Looter Scooter both games meant I never got time to make more land drops – I was dead. Someone else can figure the odds of drawing seven-eight straight lands in a 16 land, forty card deck after a mulligan to six, but don’t bother telling me. I don’t want to know. I do know that I logged out of MTGO after that, and haven’t logged back on yet. Maybe this weekend.

PRJ

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

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