The State of the Program for October 25th 2013

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

In the News this Week:

Vintage Masters Announced: Wizards will be creating Vintage Masters, similar to Modern Masters, but which will exist only online. It will not be redeemable (obviously), which means that it will contain the Power Nine, together with other cards needed for true Vintage to be played online. Wizards is aiming to make the set as much fun to play as Modern Masters. That is a tough goal, and delays with the Wide Beta and other stuff means that they will not get it done this year. The release date is June, 2014. Price will be $6.99 per pack, and packs will – like Modern Masters – will replace the basic lands with a Premium card. Details Wizards will be creating Vintage Masters, similar to Modern Masters, but which will exist only online. It will not be redeemable (obviously), which means that it will contain thetogether with other cards needed for true Vintage to be played online. Wizards is aiming to make the set as much fun to play as Modern Masters. That is a tough goal, and delays with the Wide Beta and other stuff means that they will not get it done this year. The release date is June, 2014. Price will be $6.99 per pack, and packs will – like Modern Masters – will replace the basic lands with a Premium card. Details here . I speculate a lot about the whats, whys and wherefores of the set – things like why the P9 will have new art and frames and what the odds of opening Power are likely to be – in the Opinion section a little further down.

PTQ Crash: The online PTQ on Oct. 20th developed a fatal flaw during round 7 and was cancelled. All players with records of X-2 or worse were given 6 booster as compensation. Everyone with records of X-1 or better will also get 6 boosters, and be invited to a special PTQ, scheduled for 7am Oct. 26th, to play it out. Wizards also apologized for the problems. Details The online PTQ on Oct. 20developed a fatal flaw during round 7 and was cancelled. All players with records of X-2 or worse were given 6 booster as compensation. Everyone with records of X-1 or better will also get 6 boosters, and be invited to a special PTQ, scheduled for 7am Oct. 26, to play it out. Wizards also apologized for the problems. Details here

Release Queues have Ended: The Theros release events are over. Theros should now be in the normal draft queues, in all three varieties. (Note, I am writing this part before the downtime, so I have not yet seen them, but it should have happened by the time this gets posted.) I suspect that RtR block drafts will now only be offered in the 4-3-2-2 format.

Wizard changed up the release queues this time around. The initial announcement mentioned four types of release events: 64 player drafts, Premier sealed events w/ Top 8 drafts, Swiss drafts and 16 player fire-on-demand sealed events. The prizes for the Top 8 Premier events were massively increased this time around, while the prizes for the on-demand sealed events were cut drastically. Let’s see how they all did.

64 Player Draft Events: They fired. Even midday this last Tuesday, the events were full. It looks like these fired every hour, on the hour, for the entire release period. This type of event clearly works.

Premier Sealed with Top 8 Draft: The minimum number of players for this event was 129. I saw just one such event fire, with exactly 129 players. The prizes for the event are great, but eight rounds of Swiss cut to Top 8 is a long, long tournament. I was briefly tempted when I saw that an event was likely to fire, but I cannot spend that much time playing MTGO. Apparently, neither can most other players. These were a bust.

16 Player fire-on-demand Sealed: In the past, these events were great values, despite being TIX only. I played a ton of them, to the extent that I would start saving up TIX months in advance. However, I generally came out of them with enough packs to play limited for a couple months. This time around, however, the prize pool was severely reduced, and so was the number of events firing. They did fire, but only once every 15-20 minutes. This is much lower than during past releases. I did not play in any. I did play in one regular Daily, which was a bit more expensive but had a higher prize payout.

I don’t know if Wizards considered the change to prize payouts for the 16 player queues a success or not. On the one hand, they introduced Theros Daily sealed events early on – before the release events ended. That is new, and might be a signal that the players wanted four rounds but were rejecting the on-demand queues. On the other hand, on effect of the old queues was that a ton of players won packs in TIX only events, which caused pack prices to crash. That has not happened this time around.

Overall, the release events seem to have worked. The big Premier events clearly need tweaking, but for all the rest, a lot of players got to play a lot of Theros. Seems good.

R&D Hydra Challenge Have Begun: The th and run through October 28th. Each of the five winners of a prelim will play against members of Wizards R&D piloting “the Hydra. “ The R&D team will include: The Face the Hydra Challenge Preliminaries began on Thursday, October 24and run through October 28. Each of the five winners of a prelim will play against members of Wizards R&D piloting “the Hydra. “ The R&D team will include:

· Ryan Spain

· Jon Loucks

· Dave Guskin

· Sam Stoddard

· Dave Humpherys

If three or more of the champions are victorious in their trials against the Hydraall players who have logged in between October 4 and November 6 will receive a Hydra Avatar. If R&D wins, no avatars

Commander 2013 Arriving in December: In another demonstration that supporting two clients at once is tough, the In another demonstration that supporting two clients at once is tough, the Commander 2013 set will not appear online until about 6 weeks after it is released in paper. Jace v. Vraska , the next duel deck, will arrive in paper in March, but not appear online until May.

November Player Rewards and MOCs Promo Announced: The MOCS Season 12 promo is an alternative art The MOCS Season 12 promo is an alternative art Land Tax . The Player Rewards Event Participation Promo is an alternative art Desertion and the store activity promo is an alt art (Duplicant.) The TNMO promo this month is a pretty cool looking Grisly Salvage

Redemption Timing Out for Some Old Sets: Magic Online allows redemption of online sets for paper copies of the cards. The sets have two cut-off periods. The first is the time at which redemption is guaranteed. Until that date, you will be able to redeem a set. For a year after that, you can redeem unless Wizards runs out of redemption product. After that final date, you cannot redeem the sets. On October 31st, guaranteed redemption ends for Innistrad block and Magic 13. On November 4th, redemption of any kind ends for Scars block and Magic 12. If you want to redeem cards, do it soon.

Limited Resources Videos Using Old Client Again: Marshall Sutcliff, the only longtime host of the Limited Resources podcast that has not been hired full time at Wizards, is now recording videos using the V3 client. For a while, he was recording using the Wide Beta client and it crashed on camera a couple times. Given Marshall’s close ties to Wizards and especially the MTGO team, I was not surprised that he was one of the first streamers / video producers to use the Wide Beta, but running it on a Mac laptop under an emulator clearly didn’t work. I look forward to seeing Marshall pick up the Wide Beta again, because it will mean the client has acceptable performance. (Disclaimer – the only fact here is that Marshall used the wide beta client, then stopped. All the rest is purely speculation on my part.)

HammyBot Update: It’s still around, and still a great way to get cards and support the family of the late Erik Friborg. So far, Hammybot has raised over 6,100 TIX! Keep it going! Hammybot still has 25.8k+ cards to sell, including a number of foil Mythics. It also has some sweet old cards that you might suddenly find you need. For example, : It’s still around, and still a great way to get cards and support the family of the late Erik Friborg. So far, Hammybot has raised over 6,100 TIX! Keep it going! Hammybot still has 25.8k+ cards to sell, including a number of foil Mythics. It also has some sweet old cards that you might suddenly find you need. For example, Gainsay has been reprinted in Theros. Hammybot has many originals – although the gainsays are gone. But for other such cards, you can buy them at market prices and help out Hammie’s family. It’s a win-win.

Speculations on Vintage Masters:

know is in A couple thoughts here, covering everything from frames to distribution to what it might include to cost. These really are speculations – I don’t have much more information than anyone else. What weis in this article . Beyond that, we have questions, and I will try to answer those.

Let’s start with an easy one: Why Modern frames and new art?

Again, I don’t know the answer to this, because Wizards’ position has always been that they don’t comment on this issue. I suspect that Wizards don’t have digital rights to some or all of the original artwork. You often see the artwork, sans frame, for newer cards shown in articles on the mothership. I don’t recall seeing the art for Black Lotus and the Moxen anyplace other than as pictures of the whole cards. These cards were printed in 1993, back when the game was first created and the World Wide Web was something academics were creating. No one knew if Magic would fly, or that there would be an online version someday. In that situation, I could easily see Wizards deciding that they only needed to buy reproduction rights, or digital rights for a couple years, since they did know that the cards would soon be out of print. Anyway, that’s my guess. The alternative is that Wizards is saving the old art for special promos in the future. I hope so, but I suspect that they are saving the old frames for that purpose. Wizards made special paper promos out of Dark Confidant and Sword of Fire and Ice by putting them in the old frames.

Another Six Months? How Hard is It to Make Vintage Masters, Anyway?

The answer is: Hard. Really Hard. Wizards isn’t just taking some out of print cards and throwing them in a pack. They need to balance the cards for limited play. More than that, they are calling this Vintage Masters. Modern Masters was an incredible limited environment, with very deep and complex draft strategies. That takes a lot of engineering and tuning – and the MTGO team has been a bit busy with Wide Beta Client issues.

Look at it this way: Masters Editions I through IV were moderately interesting, but they were not great limited formats. The old sets they pulled from had a ton of very mediocre creatures. Remember, these old cards date from a time when Juggernaut Hypnotic Specter and Kird Ape were all banned because they were too powerful. Juggernaut was a 5/3 for 4 with a drawback. Compare that with Polukranos.

Wizards has proven that they can make a great limited format out of old sets. I suspect they are doing that this time as well, but it takes a ton of work. I also suspect that, as far as the pit is concerned, the priorities are: 1) making new sets great, 2) making MTGO work, 3) Vintage Masters – plus a bunch of other priorities that I haven’t mentioned.

When was it Supposed to Have Debuted?

It was not deliberately stated, but it seems pretty clear that the plan was to have the Power Nine debuting in Vintage Masters using the new client last summer. Why do I think so? 1) For quite a while, Wizards was saying that they would turn off the old client in July. 2) Last summer was the twentieth anniversary of Magic, but Wizards did very little celebration. 3) Modern Masters was a huge hit. From all this, I think the plan was to do a big push of MTGO, together with a nostalgia “play the Power Nine in Vintage Masters, now on MTGO.” It didn’t happen. The Wide Beta Client suffered the same roll-out bugs as Apple Maps and Healthcare.gov.

What’s in Vintage Masters?

Wizards hasn’t told us exactly what card will be in the set, beyond the fact that it will contain cards for the Vintage format, including the Power Nine. They did make one comment in the article. That comment is:

[W]e are striving to make available on Magic Online every relevant Magic card in existence for the Vintage format.

The relevant word here is “relevant.” What Vintage Masters will not include is every card that is legal in paper, but not yet printed online. There are just too many. Right now, the list includes over 800 cards, most of which are irrelevant to play at any level. Here are a couple examples.

Can you imagine any serious limited format where Quarum Trench Gnomes would be a playable creature? That would be fun to play, that is? The vast, vast majority of the cards not online are 1/2s for five mana, or equally unexciting interrupts and sorceries. And cards like Cathedral of Serra: a land that does not tap for mana, but has the ability “all your blue Legends band with other Legends.” Other than compulsive collectors, does any have any interest in that at all? I am a compulsive collector, and I do have a paper copy, but only because I opened on in an Italian Legends pack. I have never played it.

Aside from the power nine, there are very few cards that really need to be added to the online card pool. Offhand, I can think of three: Nature’s Ruin, Virtue’s Ruin and Bear Cub. Nature’s Ruin has been sideboarded in Legacy decks, to serve as a second Perish . Virtue’s Ruin is a white Perish, which could be useful. Bear Cub needs to be online because it is cute, and because it completes the tribal Bear Force One deck. (Actually, I just get a kick out of the fact that the art and name are both anachronistic. Modern Wizards creative folks would never approve that, but then I also like the fact that the art for Stasis Presence of the Master and everything the Foglios did exists in Magic history. So sue me.)

The other question will be how many of the big money cards will be in Vintage Masters. The list of cards retailing over $25 (below) contains about 40 candidates. The ones already in other in-print sets, like From the Vaults Twenty, are probably out. Maybe. Cards like Tarmogoyf and Vendilion Clique are more questionable: they were reprinted in Modern Masters, but that did not hurt their online value to any significant extent. More importantly, they are solid to excellent limited cards. So are cards like Force of Will Misdirection and (Gaea’s Cradle). Cards like Show and Tell and Natural Order could be interesting “build around” cards. The problems, though, are cards like Wasteland and (Rishadan Post). Wasteland needs to be released in greater quantity, but having Wasteland and Port in a set lead to unfun, prison-style Magic. I could see Wasteland as an uncommon, and Port as a Mythic, but not a rare. Finally, the dual lands could use a wider distribution, but that would kill a lot of rare slots. I don’t know.

Fortunately, making and tuning the list is not my job. I’m happy about that. It is not going to be at all easy.

How Many Moxen?

We don’t know. What we do know is that Wizards will have a set that it “like Modern Masters”, and have boosters with 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare and one premium card in place of the basic land. The premium card will be either a foil copy of one of the cards in the set, or one of the Power Nine. Some smaller subset of the Power Nine will be foil.

Modern Masters had 229 cards. Vintage Masters should be of a similar size. If Wizards made the premium run the 229 cards in the set, then one each of the Power Nine, one in every 238 packs would contain a Black Lotus. By comparison, roughly one in every 90 Modern Masters packs contained a Tarmogoyf. Of course, we don’t know that the sequence will be the VM card, then the P9. It could also stick another set of the P9 in the middle of the run, so that a Black Lotus would appear once about every 125 packs. Wizards could insert the P9 after the second or third run through of the cards in VM, to keep the P9 even rarer. We just don’t know.

It is fun to speculate though.

Cutting Edge Tech:

Standard: The Pro Tour is over. So is the first Standard GP. Devotion is very strong. Hey Pack Rat, we hated you in limited, I doubt you are going to get more popular now.

Mono Black Devotion

Brian Braun-Duin, Winner, Grand Prix Louisville

2 Temple of Deceit

4 Hero's Downfall

4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

2 Whip of Erebos

1 Erebos, God of the Dead

2 Devour Flesh

4 Nightveil Specter

2 Pack Rat

4 Desecration Demon

4 Underworld Connections

2 Ultimate Price

2 Doom Blade

4 Mutavault

4 Thoughtseize

19 Swamp

Sideboard

1 Dark Betrayal

1 Erebos, God of the Dead

3 Lifebane Zombie

2 Devour Flesh

2 Pack Rat

2 Doom Blade

1 Pithing Needle

3 Duress

Legacy: SCG ran a Legacy event. The Top 16 is : SCG ran a Legacy event. The Top 16 is here . I recognize all of these decks, and I have featured them all in last couple months. The format is not really inbred, but nothing seems really new this week. Or maybe I’m just grouchy this morning.

Card Prices:

MTGOTraders Bots, so check out mtgotradersbot, mtgotradersbot2,mtgotradersbot3, mtgotradersbot4, mtgotradersbot5, CardCaddy and CardWareHouse. These Bots often have the cards in stock even when the online store shows as out. Now, on to prices. Notes: All my prices come from MTGOTraders.com . For cards that are available in multiple sets, I am quoting the most recent set’s price. These cards are also available from theso check out mtgotradersbot, mtgotradersbot2,mtgotradersbot3, mtgotradersbot4, mtgotradersbot5, CardCaddy and CardWareHouse. These Bots often have the cards in stock even when the online store shows as out. Now, on to prices.

Standard prices are volatile, as players work out the new metagame. A few cards are up, but most are down. Theros is entering the system in volume, and prices are falling as a result. I suspect, though, that we are nearing the bottom.

Modern prices tanked again this week. They should recover, for the most part, when Modern becomes the PTQ season format again. However, some cards not good enough or rare enough to drive Modern won’t recover. Partly for that reason, and partly because this list has become too long, I will remove everything priced at less than $6, starting with next week’s table.

Pauper bounced around a bit this week. A few adjustments, but nothing major.

Legacy and Classic were pretty much unchanged again this week. The announcement that Vintage was coming, but not for months, is too new to have any effect, yet. It probably won’t have much for now.

The Good Stuff:

The Good Stuff starts with a list of the non-foil, non-premium cards on MTGO that cost more than $25 each. Force of Will is holding at a touch over $100 – the promo version is nominally cheaper, but there are still none in stock.

Card Rarity Set Price Lion's Eye Diamond R MI $ 164.57 Force of Will R MED $ 103.37 Rishadan Port R MM $ 97.63 Show and Tell R UZ $ 84.04 Tarmogoyf M MMA $ 80.65 Wasteland U TE $ 80.12 Misdirection R MM $ 76.00 Tarmogoyf R FUT $ 75.31 Gaea's Cradle R UZ $ 60.34 City of Traitors R EX $ 58.11 Liliana of the Veil M ISD $ 45.78 Underground Sea R ME2 $ 43.83 Mox Opal M SOM $ 39.20 Vampiric Tutor R VI $ 37.11 Sphinx's Revelation M RTR $ 36.99 Underground Sea R ME4 $ 36.27 Jace, the Mind Sculptor M WWK $ 36.11 Karn Liberated M NPH $ 33.11 Natural Order R VI $ 32.72 Tropical Island R ME3 $ 31.55 Tangle Wire R NE $ 31.46 Voice of Resurgence M DGM $ 30.92 Vendilion Clique M MMA $ 30.89 Bayou R ME4 $ 30.65 Vindicate R AP $ 30.42 Bayou R ME3 $ 30.39 Tropical Island R ME4 $ 30.29 Tundra R ME4 $ 29.28 Vendilion Clique R MOR $ 29.19 Tundra R ME2 $ 28.95 Mishra's Workshop R ME4 $ 28.92 Flusterstorm R CMD $ 28.42 Jace, Architect of Thought M RTR $ 28.35 Dark Confidant M MMA $ 28.35 Sneak Attack R UZ $ 27.39 Volcanic Island R ME4 $ 26.85 Mana Drain R ME3 $ 26.69 Volcanic Island R ME3 $ 26.60

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 $24,420. That’s down almost $550 since last week. That is one heck of a rotation hit.

Weekly Highlights:

We had a weekend at home for the first time in a month. I mowed the lawn, harvested the garden and did all the routine maintenance stuff you do on an old farmhouse. I did play two Theros events, and what I have learned is that I don’t know anything about the format. I have dropped about 75 rating points in 4 events. Hopefully, this will change, but in the meantime, I am enjoying bashing things in Guild Wars.

PRJ

“one million words” on MTGO.