State of the Program for October 3rd 2014

In the News:

Khans Prerelease and Release Event Info: Prereleases are up. Release events will begin Monday. Details : Prereleases are up. Release events will begin Monday. Details here

Minimum Players Numbers Cut for MOCS and PTQ Prelims: In order to ensure that events fire, Wizards has reduced the minimum number of players from 32 to 17 for MOCS and PTQ preliminary events, and from 33 to 17 for Format Championship preliminaries, and from 65 to 33 for Format Championship events.

Constructed Queues will Payout in Khans Packs Starting Oct. 8: The prize pack payout will change from M15 to Khans with the downtime on October 8th.

VMA and Theros Block Intro Packs Going Off Sale: With the next downtime, VMA boosters and the Theros Intro Packs will no longer be available in the store. Theros block booster packs will continue to be available.

Redemption Window Closing on Innistrad Block: The guaranteed redemption period for Innistrad, Dark Ascension and Avacyn Restored has ended. This means Wizards will not do another print run. Redemption will continue until existing supplies are gone, so if you want to redeem these sets, don’t wait. Once supplies are gone, redemption ends.

Worth Asks for Prize Ideas on Twitter: Worth tweeted: Re: prizes on #mtgo, what are some things you'd like to play for that aren't packs? Can exist or not exist right now. The basic problem is that if a lot of people play constructed, that dumps a bunch of packs into the system, and the price of those packs drop. So what else can motivate people to play? If you have great ideas, share them – either with Worth or in the comments, or both. I may write about this issue next week.

Vintage Resurrection Attempt: Vintages dailies have not been firing. People have had different ideas about what to do. One option is to wait for Wizards to bail you out – but that may not happen for a long time. A better option is for Vintage players to help themselves. One of the more promising ideas for doing this was floated by Uvatha. The idea is simple. When events start firing, they attract more players. (It worked for Legacy.) Step one: identify the time period most likely to fire. Step two: have some people tasked with recruiting / reminding players to play at that time, so the events do fire regularly, and move on from there. To identify the most likely time, Uvatha created a Doodle poll. For those of you who haven’t used it, Doodle is a really simple way of setting out a bunch of alternative times for a meeting or whatever, and letting anyone vote on times that work or don’t work for them. Good idea – and if you play, or want to play Vintage, answer the poll. The Doodle poll is : Vintages dailies have not been firing. People have had different ideas about what to do. One option is to wait for Wizards to bail you out – but that may not happen for a long time. A better option is for Vintage players to help themselves. One of the more promising ideas for doing this was floated by Uvatha. The idea is simple. When events start firing, they attract more players. (It worked for Legacy.) Step one: identify the time period most likely to fire. Step two: have some people tasked with recruiting / reminding players to play at that time, so the events do fire regularly, and move on from there. To identify the most likely time, Uvatha created a Doodle poll. For those of you who haven’t used it, Doodle is a really simple way of setting out a bunch of alternative times for a meeting or whatever, and letting anyone vote on times that work or don’t work for them. Good idea – and if you play, or want to play Vintage, answer the poll. The Doodle poll is here

The Timeline:

This is a list of things we have been promised, or just want to see coming back. Another good source for dates and times is the MTGO calendar . Here’s what we know, want or are tracking. I also created another list for notable bugs. If you know of one that has not been fixed (and you or someone has filed a bug report) please let me know.

Item (date it will return) and notes

· Khans of Tarkir: (October) Prerelease Starts TODAY! Details (October) Prerelease Starts TODAY! Details here

· Leagues (2014) Wizards has promised that leagues will return this year. Details (2014) Wizards has promised that leagues will return this year. Details here

· From the Vault: Annihilation: (10/6/2014) Monday!

· Duel Decks: Speed vs. Cunning (10/6/2014) Details (10/6/2014) Details here

· Commander 2014: (11/21/2014) Details (11/21/2014) Details here

· Modern Masters II: (May of 2015?)

Opinion Section: The Value of Old Cards

I have been sorting my paper cards. This is a huge task. Really Huge. Ingrid and I have been playing since late last century. We also pool collections, and tend to get paid in boxes of booster cards for judging events. Every few months, I would buy another big storage box, and sort all the cards from the current set into the box, sorted by color then alphabetically. The sort was necessary, otherwise I could never find the cards I needed to build casual, FNM or PTQ decks.

The problem was that I just sorted everything, so by the end of a block, I would have at least eight of every common, and more of stuff like Doom Blade or Lightning Strike ., and up to eight of every common. Why eight? Because that’s a playset for both Ingrid and I.

This system has worked reasonably well for a decade and a half, but it was beginning to break down. I was having problems remembering whether Twilight Mire was Lorwyn or Shadowmoor, and which block Torment was in. Worse yet, when I needed something like Underground River, I had to check the Ice Ages box, then the various core set boxes, etc. The final straw was trying to put away the cards worth keeping after a recent Conspiracy draft, plus the wreckage of some Commander precons I had raided for Legacy cards. Wizards has so many reprints, especially in the paper world.

It was clear that I really should have sorted alphabetically – and that what I really needed to do resort everything. Considering that I was using 3200 and 5000 count card boxes for each block, that was a lot of cards. On the plus sides, I knew that I would be able to cut a lot of Naturalizes, since I probably had playsets in a half dozen sets. I also figured that a lot of the older sets had way more than eight of various commons and uncommons, because we used to keep a lot more decks built, back in the day. It was not unusual to have 16 Yavimaya Elders in decks at any given time. Now, however, a lot more casual play involved Commander decks, which are singleton.

Back then, we also tended to play more casual games with another couple, and built a lot of them decks. For example, I might build an “Old McDonald’s Farm” deck and actually include a Pillarfield Ox. We don’t do that much, anymore. As a result, I figured I could just get rid of a lot of old cards that just I was just never going to play.

Now I play paper Vintage, Legacy, Commander and a ton of casual stuff, but I have never actually put a Pillarfield Ox in a constructed deck. I also assumed I never would. (Worst case – if I sold them all off, and decided I really did need one for an Old McDonald’s Farm deck, I would just order one from Cape Fear Games .) More importantly, I figured that a lot of the old creatures and limited combat effects from pre-modern sets were just not worth keeping. (And if I didn’t keep them, I would not have to sort them.)

At the beginning, while sorting sets like Tempest, I tended to keep a lot of cards – all the rares, pretty much all the uncommons, and most everything I have ever played or liked. By the time I was sorting the last few sets, I was getting pretty ruthless, and getting rid of a ton of stuff. I also noticed a lot of trends and rules for deciding whether a card is worth anything.

This probably explains why the value of most cards in old sets is so low.

First of all, the value of cards is inversely proportional to the card pool. For example, let’s look at green M15 cards. In a sealed event, your “card pool” is 84 cards, plus lands. In that format, a card like Runeclaw Bear is good. In Standard, with a couple hundred cards in the card pool, Runeclaw Bear will never make the cut, but Sunblade Elf might. Move on to Modern, with thousands of card in the card pool, and the number of M15 green cards playable is down to a handful, while in Legacy it is probably limited to Reclamation Sage and Elvish Mystic in Elves! The bigger the format, the better a card needs to be to make the cut.

I also noticed that Wizards has changed how magic is played. Specifically, Wizards has decided to nerf certain archetypes that were just no fun to play against. The two biggest archetypes that simply don’t exist are land destruction and draw-go. Decks like Ponza, which killed all of an opponent’s lands, are gone. They never will return – so cards like Pillage and Avalanche Riders have lost nearly all of their value. Which raises the question of whether I should keep any Stone Rain s at all. It’s iconic, and has been reprinted a dozen times, but it may never be playable in any constructed format again.

The next rule is that combat tricks, as a general rule, have no place outside of limited. Sure, once in a blue moon Giant Growth will appear in some Standard deck, and protection effects like Brave the Elements might see play, but (Might Leap) is never going to make it into a Modern deck. In short, most combat tricks will, once they rotate out of Standard, only be useful only as bookmarks )and not even that, if we are talking MTGO.)

Deathrite Shaman, Another general rule – creatures are only playable if they have very good effects, and are very cheap. The meaning or “very cheap” varies with the format. In sealed, the maximum converted mana cost you can expect to be able to play is about seven, and that is pushing it. (Note: the number is higher in ramp decks.) In draft, six is generally the top of the line. In Standard, anything over five had better be amazing. In Modern, the top end is about four, except for ramp decks like Melira-Pod, Amulet, Tron and Scapeshift. Legacy tends to like threes or less (although Legacy has a ton of huge fatties that are cheated into play, not cast.) In Vintage, the main creatures are Delver of Secrets Young Pyromancer and the occasional hate bear – plus Tinker targets, creatures appearing via Oath of Druids and the stuff in Shops, which is the format’s ramp deck. In other words, 99%+ of all pre-Modern creatures are probably unplayable in any sanctioned deck.

What does this mean? Well, here are three cards that I have double playsets in the paper world.

(pic=Shinen of Fear’s Chill)

I can imagine decks that could use all of these, but could not figure out where I would play them. Casual night at my local store is mainly multiplayer and Commander, plus some playtesting for FNM and the like. I supposed I could build a demons deck for multiplayer, but I have other decks I like better. I cannot ever see playing those cards in any serious duel in the paper world. (Online, I could see building a Legacy Tribal Wars deck, which is why I will keep my virtual copies.)

Here’s another example: (Barrel Down Sokezan). I could totally see building a red deck with lots of Mountains, Barrel Down Sokezan and Seismic Assault . I just cannot see a place to play it. It would kill one opponent fairly well, but it would not be much of a multiplayer deck. As for sanctioned Legacy, that format has better and faster combo decks, so this combo would not work. That’s why I’ll probably sell my paper Barrel Downs. Sorting them is just not worth the effort.

Cutting Edge Tech:

Standard: SCG ran two Standard Opens last weekend. The Top 8s were full of green based decks, with a ton of Sylvan Caryatids and Coursers of Kruphix. Here’s a winner, and a deck that I would love to play both in paper and online. Self-mill is a thing.

Modern: SCG ran two Modern Events last weekend. We did not see a ton of new Khans cards or archetypes. The winner was Blue Moon, with one new card (a single Dig Through Time).

Legacy: SCG held two Legacy Opens last weekend. The mist numerous deck in the Top 8 was Elves!, but that didn’t feature anything really new. (“New” = Khans.) The winning deck at Edison did feature some new cards.

Vintage: The : The Vintage Super League play is continuing. No Khans cards so far, since play is on MTGO, but you can watch the videos on Twich.tv or YouTube.com. Next week, though, decks may include Khans cards. This week’s games were awesome. Here’s why Vintage can be super cool. This is the recap of game two between Player of the Year Josh Utter-Leyton and Bob (the Great One) Maher.

In game 2 Josh used his pair of Lightning Bolts to kill off two Lodestone Golems and without much pressure on his life total Josh was able to wait out a Tangle Wire, play Pyromancer’s Ascension, set up a turn where he could Demonic Tutor for both Yawgmoth’s Will and Black Lotus (thanks to the extra copy of Demonic Tutor from the turned on Ascension). From there he played 3 Young Pyromancers, made 20-some tokens, and cast a Time Walk so he could untap and attack for the win.

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).

Standard staples: The Standard metagame is brand new, and these prices are pretty meaningless. MTGOTraders.com does not chase every sudden price fluctuation. They will track trends over time, and those trends will develop as decks are proven. All we have really seen so far is that Courser is still strong, but that a lot of people speculated overly-much on Courser, Mana Confluence and so forth.

Modern staples: Modern cards are a mixed bag this week. Everyone is concentrating on the new set, so Modern prices are pretty stagnate.

Legacy / Vintage: Legacy and Vintage prices were pretty stable again this week. VMA drafts and sealed are winding down, so the supply is shrinking and speculators are getting in on the action. The Tempest drafts have not had much of an impact, so far.

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. For those of you who redeem, here are the retail prices of one of everything set currently available in the store. I cut sets that are no longer draftable.

Complete Set Price Last Week Change % Change Born of the Gods $71.53 $71.79 ($0.26) 0% Journey into Nix $104.18 $106.92 ($2.74) -3% M15 $130.51 $126.76 $3.75 3% Khans of Trakir new n/a n/a n/a Theros $132.64 $118.51 $14.13 12%

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. Black Lotus continues to lead the pack, pulling away from Wasteland and Rishadan Port. Mox Sapphire is climbing towards where it should be. Also of note: Khans of Trakir reprint has pushed all the Onslaught fetches off the table.

Black Lotus B VMA $ 214.23 Rishadan Port R MM $ 150.68 Mox Sapphire B VMA $ 109.76 Wasteland U TE $ 109.76 Tarmogoyf M MMA $ 100.13 Tarmogoyf R FUT $ 95.88 Misdirection R MM $ 95.25 Ancestral Recall B VMA $ 93.78 Mox Jet B VMA $ 83.28 Mox Opal M SOM $ 82.60 Liliana of the Veil M ISD $ 79.14 Time Walk B VMA $ 68.26 Mox Ruby B VMA $ 65.44 Show and Tell R UZ $ 64.47 Vendilion Clique M MMA $ 64.07 Vendilion Clique R MOR $ 63.89 Griselbrand M AVR $ 57.60 Force of Will R MED $ 56.47 Mox Emerald B VMA $ 53.26 Hurkyl's Recall R 10E $ 51.75 Mox Pearl B VMA $ 50.87 Tangle Wire R NE $ 42.36 True-Name Nemesis R C13 $ 41.74 Noble Hierarch R CON $ 41.41 Batterskull M NPH $ 41.27 Sneak Attack R UZ $ 40.51 Karn Liberated M NPH $ 36.80 Toxic Deluge R C13 $ 36.63 Dark Confidant M MMA $ 36.13 City of Traitors R EX $ 34.97 Gaea's Cradle R UZ $ 34.62 Force of Will R VMA $ 34.12 Tezzeret the Seeker M ALA $ 34.12 Undiscovered Paradise R VI $ 33.63 Infernal Tutor R DIS $ 33.04 Lion's Eye Diamond R MI $ 32.87 Craterhoof Behemoth M AVR $ 32.78 Linvala, Keeper of Silence M ROE $ 32.34 Jace, the Mind Sculptor M WWK $ 30.76 Dark Confidant R RAV $ 30.69 Twilight Mire R EVE $ 30.13 Dark Depths R CSP $ 29.79 Entreat the Angels M AVR $ 28.82 Bitterblossom R MOR $ 27.29 Fulminator Mage R SHM $ 27.26 Scalding Tarn R ZEN $ 26.35 Nissa, Worldwaker M M15 $ 25.95 Goblin Welder R UL $ 25.74 Unmask R MM $ 25.42 Intuition R TE $ 25.24 Underground Sea R ME2 $ 25.12 Cryptic Command R MMA $ 25.06

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 $ 26,550. That’s pretty much where we were last week. Next week we will be adding Khans to the card pool.

Weekly Highlights:

Spent my free time sorting paper cards, although I did get a few last 1v1 matches of old Standard in. I also tried to get some last RtR block and VMA drafts in, but just didn’t have enough time.

PRJ

“one million words” on MTGO

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

HammyBot Still Running: 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 over 24,000 cards left in the collection. Those cards are being sold at 10% below retail price. Erik died three years ago, so HammyBot does not include any standard legal sets, but it includes a ton of Masters Edition and Vintage cards, and some nice Modern bargains.