State of the Program for January 27th 2017

In the News

Aether Revolt is Online: Aether Revolt cards are now in drafts and sealed card pools, and legal in all constructed formats.

Pro Tour Team Roosters Revealed: In addition to personal honors, the Magic world has also divided into 6 player teams to compete at the Pro Tour. At the end of the year, the teams with the best overall record will compete for glory (and some serious rewards.) The rosters are : In addition to personal honors, the Magic world has also divided into 6 player teams to compete at the Pro Tour.At the end of the year, the teams with the best overall record will compete for glory (and some serious rewards.) The rosters are here

Pro Tour Next Week: Play starts next Friday. Coverage on Twitch.tv.

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 bug blog which appears sporadically on MTGO.com. Most of the major upcoming events we know of are listed. Not listed, but important: Wizards offers 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 January 18th Extended Downtime (none announced, but January 25tth likely.) Current Leagues End May 2, 2017 Amonkhet May 2, 2017 MTGO release Modern Masters 2017 Edition March 23rd on MTGO Next B&R Announcement March 13, 2017

Flashback, Throwback Standard and CUBE for 2017

Wizards will be offering either a flashback draft league, a flashback Standard gauntlet, a CUBE league or prerelease / Release events each week. Here’s the schedule so far.

Flashback and Such Rotation Begins Ends Dead spot (was to be prerelease/ release events) January 25th February 22nd Throwback Standard Gauntlet (1994?) February 22nd March 1st Invasion/Planeshift/Apocalypse Draft March 1st March 8th Cube Draft (Cube format TBD) March 8th March 22nd Modern Masters 2017 Leagues March 22nd April 12th

The new Flashback Leagues are still draft, and still you-keep-the-cards. They are 12 TIX / product plus 2 TIX / 120 Play Points. However, they are no longer single elimination. Now you play until you have three wins or two losses. Prizes are 150 play points for three wins and 70 Play points for 2 wins. The leagues run one week.

The Throwback Standard Gauntlet events provide a random choice of prebuilt decks from a past standard environment. These will function like the Pro Tour Gauntlets – you won’t need to own the cards. The entry fee is 10 TIX or 100 Play Points. Prizes are in Play Points: 150 for 3-0, 100 for 2-1, 40 for 1-2 and 10 play points as a bad beats award.

Opinion Section: Single Game Draft League

Wizards has given us a new draft format: single game matches. This is the new face of the “friendly” draft league. The old 6-2-2-2 draft league is still around, and called “intermediate.” It hasn’t changed, except that Wizards added a QP to the undefeated prizes for the intermediate league.

Wizards introduced the new friendly league – technically the “Aether Revolt-Kaladesh Friendly Single-Game Draft League.” You can read the Wizards announcement of the league here , and official details here, but the basic concepts is: you draft as normal. You then play single game matches – one game, winner takes the match. You keep playing until you have won seven game/matches or lost four. Like most drafts, the cost is 12 Tix or product plus 2 Tix or 120 Play Points. Prizes range from 10 PP for going 1-4 to 120 PP for going 7-x. Note that you can take up to three loses and still finish with the top prize.

The “top prize” is, basically, getting your entry fee back, but remember that this is not a phantom draft. You keep the cards, so that’s something. You also get at least four matches, and possibly up to 10 matches, with the deck. This league is not a way to grind out value. It is, however, a reasonably priced form of entertainment.

Plenty to think about. This is a new type of event. I figured that the best way to wrap my head around it was to try it out. I joined Wednesday night, once I got home from work. At that point, the league had under 200 players, but that was early. I paid my 120 Play Points and I was in the queue, as player one. Despite that, the draft fired quickly. I was in the queue about 2 minutes.

Drafting seemed normal. Cards went around, and we all waited a lot for that one slow drafter. The rares vanished quickly, but this was, in everything but name, a release event. Rares are more valuable now. One thing I did notice – I found myself taking sideboard cards. That is something I will have to break myself of if I do more of these drafts. With single game matches, you never sideboard. Those (Take Down)s are either going to be main deck or irrelevant.

I played a couple games immediately, late that evening and before work the next morning. Wait times were not bad – I was paired up in under a minute even when I had an undefeated record. (Pairing for the outlying records – X-0 or 0-X – are the most difficult, and should take the longest.)

Since you are only playing single games, the timer is shortened. Each player’s clock starts with 12 minutes. Even though I have a slow and laggy connection, and this was my first draft with the new set, I had no problems finishing my games.

So I have now played through one and a half leagues. The big difference is, obviously, that the match lasts one game. For me, that did make a real difference.

First of all, seeing a bomb rare very early in the match seems to feel a lot worse. This may just be me being salty, since I lost a couple games to stupid flying bombs that came out super early.

I also lost to a couple things that should not work – and would not work in a regular match. Things like Siege Modification on a Consulate Dreadnought – that sort of thing might work game one, but in a normal match you would sideboard in answers. In this format, you never get a chance to sideboard. You can also never come back from an opponent’s fast start.

Wining the die roll is also much more advantageous in single game matches. If your opponent curves out, you probably cannot win – and you do not get the chance to come back in game two, because there isn’t one.

Did I mention that I am salty? I bombed out of the first draft, and the handful of play points did nothing to make me feel better about it. It’s possible that I just drafted and played badly, and the format itself is not at fault. Nonetheless, I am not happy, and that may be influencing my views, so fair warning. I did finish my first draft with a loss due to a misclick through misunderstanding how a new card was implemented, then a double mulligan, then a single mulligan and never drawing a land. So I’m salty.

I also found that I never won a game in which I mulliganed, and never lost when my opponents mulliganed. The scry one helps, but mulligans are very damaging, and you don’t get more games to even this out. In other formats that have single game matches, like Commander, Wizards allows a “free” mulligan; the first mulligan goes to seven cards, then subsequent mulligans tick down the card count. I asked Lee Sharpe about this, and he said that Wizards was not going to implement a free mulligan in this format. The four losses are intended to partly offset this – in effect, you have three games to lose and still win the top prize. That is true.

Overall, the single game format is comparable to normal drafts. If you go undefeated, you play one more game than you would in a normal three round draft. If you lose your first four games, you will be, in theory, out a match sooner than in a normal draft. However, most players who go 0-2 in a normal draft drop, or end up with a meaningless bye in the last round, so this seems reasonable.

After playing through one and a half leagues, I am not in love with the format, but I will probably draft it again. One advantage to the format is that it does let me sneak games into the small chunks of time I can free up. For example, I had 15-20 minutes between the time I popped the pizza in the oven and dinnertime. That was enough time for a “match” in his league, but not enough to play one in a traditional draft league. That’s a real advantage, at least for people like me. The leagues also seem to finish faster, and – at least so far – the “matches” pair faster than other leagues. That’s good. The downside, of course, is that it is a bit further from a “pure” drafting experience, but the trade-offs seem reasonable. Given a choice, I would prefer a chance to sit around a table with seven friends and draft paper cards. That is rarely possible, so we play online instead. Online play is not perfect, but it is a reasonable alternative. Likewise, if you can play for long periods of time, then I would recommend the other draft leagues. However, if all you have is short bursts of time, then I recommend this format. It isn’t perfect, but it is way, way better than not playing.

And now I have to submit this article, so I can get back to my league.

Cutting Edge Tech

Standard: We have a new Standard. SCG ran an Open last weekend in Columbus. The Top 64 decklists are : We have a new Standard. SCG ran an Open last weekend in Columbus. The Top 64 decklists are here . The new hotness is clearly the Copycat deck, with Saheeli Rai / Felidar Guardian playing the part of Splinter Twin. The Copycat had over two dozen appearances in the Top 64. Well, we now know it works. The question for next week and the Pro Tour is whether it can be hated out.

Modern: We have the first few results from paper Modern events run with Aether Revolt cards. This deck finished second, and has a couple.



Pauper: Too early for any decks with Aether Revolt cards, so here’s another classic archetype making a reappearance on the undefeated league decks.

Legacy: No results from events with Aether Revolt cards. That should change by next week.

Vintage: The Vintage Super League Season Six Qualifier Tournament has finished, and Rachel Agnes made it through. Regular league play should resume next Tuesday.

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 mixed again this week. I have added a couple Aether Revolt cards, but these prices are from early this week, so they will change.

Modern staples: Modern prices are mixed again this week – more so than usual. I knocked a few cards off the list, and a few cards may get added, but prices are realty volatile.

Legacy and Vintage: Legacy and Vintage are mixed this week. Leovold came back down to earth, and power is slipping.

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. Treasure Chests and the current booster packs are here because they don’t really fit anywhere else. Treasure Chests are settling down. No that booster packs are out of Treasure Chests, they may settle down. If so, I may pull them off the list. If not, I may add Aether Revolt boosters as well.

Complete Set Price Last Week Change % Change Aether Revolt $123.91 n/a Battle for Zendikar $62.53 $70.36 ($7.83) -11% Eldritch Moon $105.36 $106.33 ($0.97) -1% Kaladesh $93.26 $84.89 $8.37 10% Oath of the Gatewatch $109.84 $110.85 ($1.01) -1% Shadows over Innistrad $73.82 $73.98 ($0.16) 0% Treasure Chest $3.00 $3.11 ($0.11) -4% Kaladesh Booster $2.54 $2.59 ($0.05) -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 shrank a couple cards again this week, and Black Lotus is slipping.

Name Set Rarity Price Rishadan Port MM Rare $ 166.69 Liliana of the Veil ISD Mythic Rare $ 84.55 Black Lotus VMA Bonus $ 79.13 Ensnaring Bridge ST Rare $ 62.41 Wasteland TPR Rare $ 57.76 Wasteland EXP Mythic Rare $ 56.94 Wasteland TE Uncommon $ 56.09 Ensnaring Bridge 7E Rare $ 54.16 Show and Tell UZ Rare $ 54.01 True-Name Nemesis PZ1 Mythic Rare $ 53.79 Wasteland EMA Rare $ 52.21 Tarmogoyf MMA Mythic Rare $ 49.42 Ensnaring Bridge 8ED Rare $ 49.12 Ensnaring Bridge MS2 Bonus $ 49.00 Tarmogoyf MM2 Mythic Rare $ 48.34 Tarmogoyf FUT Rare $ 48.09 Unmask MM Rare $ 46.56 Exploration UZ Rare $ 46.18 Engineered Explosives MMA Rare $ 45.89 Engineered Explosives 5DN Rare $ 45.26 Engineered Explosives MS2 Bonus $ 45.00 Food Chain MM Rare $ 43.28 True-Name Nemesis C13 Rare $ 41.72 Back to Basics UZ Rare $ 39.71 Mox Sapphire VMA Bonus $ 38.49 Ancestral Vision DD2 Rare $ 37.36 Ancestral Vision TSP Rare $ 36.89 Mox Opal MS2 Bonus $ 36.84 Blood Moon MMA Rare $ 36.64 Infernal Tutor DIS Rare $ 36.48 Mox Opal MM2 Mythic Rare $ 36.32 Mox Opal SOM Mythic Rare $ 36.25 Misdirection MM Rare $ 35.59 Leovold, Emissary of Trest PZ2 Mythic Rare $ 35.37 Containment Priest PZ1 Rare $ 35.28 Force of Will MED Rare $ 35.26 From the Ashes C13 Rare $ 34.98 Tangle Wire NE Rare $ 34.48 Blood Moon 9ED Rare $ 34.21 Blood Moon 8ED Rare $ 34.08 Griselbrand AVR Mythic Rare $ 33.87 Gaea's Cradle UZ Rare $ 33.87 Karn Liberated MM2 Mythic Rare $ 33.21 Scalding Tarn EXP Mythic Rare $ 32.95 Karn Liberated NPH Mythic Rare $ 32.86 Force of Will EMA Mythic Rare $ 32.01 Containment Priest C14 Rare $ 31.78 Scapeshift MOR Rare $ 31.68 Force of Will VMA Rare $ 30.11 Meren of Clan Nel Toth PZ1 Rare $ 29.17 Chalice of the Void MS2 Bonus $ 29.00 Chalice of the Void MMA Rare $ 28.66 Cavern of Souls AVR Rare $ 28.21 Doomsday WL Rare $ 27.93 Chalice of the Void MRD Rare $ 27.62 Unmask V16 Mythic Rare $ 27.35 Batterskull NPH Mythic Rare $ 27.06 Ancestral Recall VMA Bonus $ 26.05 Liliana, the Last Hope EMN Mythic Rare $ 25.66 Horizon Canopy EXP Mythic Rare $ 25.47

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 $ 24,915. That is up about $150 from last week.

Weekly Highlights

It was fun while it lasted.

PRJ

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

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