State of the Program for September 23rd 2016

In the News:

Kaladesh is coming: The new set is fully revealed, and this weekend the paper world is going to have fun with the prerelease events. As usual, MTGO players will have to wait a couple more weeks, as the prerelease is due online October 7 through 10 . Info on the specific form that the online prerelease will take will be available only next week (sealed leagues will probably be a given.)

MOCS 2017: The Magic Online Championship Series, or MOCS, is going to start the new season on September 28, 2016 (end date: October 5, 2017). The new iteration will see some major changes, as announced here (complete revised 2017 rules are found here.) In summation: more monthly events (two per month, 8-round Swiss fixed structure, no Top 8), introduction of open events with no QPs required during each new Standard-legal set release, expansion of the schedule to include Friday, unified leaderboard, and a prize pool raised from $116,000 to $200,000, which sounds like good news. Also, the plan is to sever any link between the MOCS and the World Championships, and also reduce the role of Platinum members of the Pro Players Club by removing their automatic invitations to Playoff Events. Be aware this applies starting from the 2017 series: the current MOCS that's ending October 22 continues to use the old rules.

Extended Timeout for Premier Events: The new timeout limit for such events is 15 minutes rather than the usual 10, to allow more time for players to contact support in case of technical difficulties. Which also means they expect those technical difficulties to happen.

Legacy Cube ongoing: This week's downtime saw the return of the Legacy Cube drafts that'll last until October 7. More info on this iteration here.

Power Nine Challenge: Saturday, if you feel like playing Vintage, you can try your hands at the P9 Challenge. It's Swiss, number of rounds determined by attendance (range is 33-512), and each of the Top 8 will receive, among other things, a piece of Power (Winner gets both Black Lotus and Timetwister since, you know, it's not that they could do a Top 9).

October MOPR promos: Between September 21 and October 27, event promo is (Rise from the Tides), store promo is Gush. So both blue (oh well), with Gush being almost a tix worth in its cheapest form (which is Vintage Masters), while Rise is just a 1-cent uncommon.

It's beginning to look a lot like banhammer: A new Banned and Restricted Announcement is due next Monday, and the speculation is running wild. A lot of talk about getting rid of Gitaxian Probe in Modern.

Richard Garfield's Game Player Manifesto: MTG's own daddy has published this manifesto on Facebook. It's a very interesting read about the direct link between online gaming and addictive behaviors, with an invitation to all game designers to take responsibility for the current, more than a bit scary scenario of players exploited for their compulsion to pour money into games designed to be sustained by a limited number of so-called "whales" – as pretty much every successful mobile game in existence is. He doesn't specifically mention MTGO, whose more complex structure doesn't immediately suggest a similar phenomenon, but to some extent such unfortunate situations do exist around here as well.

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 sources for known bugs are the Known Issues Archive and the Bug Blog. For quick reference, here are some major upcoming events.

Item: date and notes

Power Nine Challenge: Last Saturday of the month, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific. Next one: September 24.

Legacy Challenge: Second Saturday of the month, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific. Next one: October 8.

No Downtime on these Dates: October 12, November 2, 9 and 30, and December 14.

Extended Downtime on these Dates: September 28, from 3:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Pacific.

League End Dates: all current leagues end October 5.

Kaladesh: MTGO prerelease October 7-10, on sale October 10. Product code: KLD.

From the Vault: Lore: MTGO release October 10. Product code: V16.

Commander (2016 Edition): paper release November 11. Product code: C16. No MTGO release, but key cards (the 5 decks will feature 56 new Vintage- and Legacy-legal cards) will be released online within another product.

Planechase Anthology: paper release November 25. Product code: PCA. No MTGO release.

Aether Revolt: MTGO prerelease January 27-30, 2017, on sale January 30. Product code: AER.

Modern Masters 2017 Edition: MTGO release March 23, 2017. Product code: MM3.

Flashback schedule:

Flashback drafts are 10 tix or 100 Play Points or 2 tix plus product, no Phantom, single elimination and pay out in Play Points: 200 for first, 100 for second, 50 for third and fourth.

1x Mirrodin Besieged, 2x Scars of Mirrodin: September 21 to September 28.

1x New Phyrexia, 1x Mirrodin Besieged, 1x Scars of Mirrodin: September 28 to October 5.

Pause for Kaladesh release: October 5 to October 26.

3x Innistrad: October 26 to November 2.

1x Dark Ascension, 2x Innistrad: November 2 to November 9.

3x Magic 2012: November 9 to November 16.

3x Avacyn Restored: November 16 to November 23.

3x Magic 2013: November 23 to November 30.

3x Return to Ravnica: November 30 to December 7.

3x Gatecrash: December 7 to December 14.

1x Dragon’s Maze, 1x Gatecrash, 1x Return to Ravnica: December 14 to December 21.

Flashback This Week: Flashback drafts will feature 1 Mirrodin Besieged booster and 2 Scars of Mirrodin boosters this week (ending on the downtime of Wednesday, September 28). The money cards in these sets are quite a few: Inkmoth Nexus (MBS, $31.93), Mox Opal (SOM, $26.52), Thrun, the Last Troll (MBS, $13.85), Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas (MBS, $12.71), Blightsteel Colossus (MBS, $7.18), Wurmcoil Engine (SOM, $6.49). TOTALE MBS: $86.76 . TOTALE SOM: $67.82 . (Data collected on September 23).

Opinion Section: Magic and the Real World

So Kaladesh is set on an India-like plane. It's pretty evident from the artwork and the names (Kaladesh itself is a Sanskrit word that means "world of tomorrow", which is kinda clever and kinda cute.) If I had to judge at first impression, I'd say this sort of real-world inspirations are amazing, they enrich the game's universe and expose the players to different cultures. But is it an operation entirely without risks? Might it be something akin to undue cultural appropriation? Could it lead to issues of misuse and misunderstanding of the appropriated source?

Let's see, in the Modern era, Magic has explored all kinds of Earth-adjacent planes: Kamigawa is feudal Japan, Innistrad is some sort of medieval Germany, Theros is ancient Greece, and Tarkir is Central Asia (mostly reminiscent of the Mongol Empire). And that's just the current incarnation of the multiverse: Back in the old times, when Magic still hadn't really established a coherent setting, we had expansions not merely inspired by real-world locales, but, you know, directly set into the places themselves: the infamous Arabian Nights, of course, but also the less widely known Portal: Three Kingdoms, which depicts an actual period in the history of China. The result is that the Magic multiverse still somehow contains Baghdad and several Chinese historical figures (not to mention all those real people/Earth myths from Legends).

Of course the current approach is truly different, and I like to think it's done with deep knowledge of the source and in good taste (which couldn't be said for certain unfortunate by-products from Arabian Nights). But, to be honest, how should I know? Are Indian people happy about being represented in Kaladesh? Are they okay with the way the representation pans out? Again, I want to think they are, but again, I can't really tell without asking, and this means the risk is, for me, to get the wrong impression from this setting (and it's already telling that it's described by the creators as "India, but without the colonialism"). However, I'm Italian, and what do you know, Magic also included some Renaissance Italy in the form of Conspiracy, which is set on the plane of Fiora. So, as an Italian, am I happy about that? Am I okay with the appropriation? On some level, I think it's cool. But then I also see that certain names sound pretty stupid (Marchesa is a title, not a name). Whereas Daretti is an actual family name, which means there's real people called that way; are they glad their name has been given to some mischievous, crippled goblin? And I know Germans who find pretty ridiculous the random use of German words in Innistrad.

In conclusion, you see, the issues with taking inspiration from real places and stories are subtle. WotC seems to think they're paying homage to these realities, as Kamigawa was designed to appeal to Japanese and Portal: Three Kingdoms to Chinese audiences (which, if you ask me, it's even just a bit condescending: do we really like better a product that tells us, "Look! It's you!"?). I'm not saying they did wrong, but I wonder what the represented people think about this. And what do you guys think? Should WotC stop doing these appropriations, or is it harmless, or even productive?

Cutting Edge Tech:

The little I'm known for (besides my OCD that compels me to relentlessly catalogue sets and creature types) is for running Player Run Events on MTGO. So now that I've been asked to take Pete's place for a week, I want to pay my respect to the players that day after day populate those events, and more often than not are very competitive, very savvy, extremely creative players who just don't care for the pro circuit. So here's the winning decks of last week's more prominent PREs.

Card Prices:

NOTE: All my prices come from MTGGoldfish.com that in turn monitors MTGOTraders.com. These are retail prices, and generally the price of the lowest priced, actively traded version. You can get these cards at the MTGOTraders.com web store, or from their bots: MTGOTradersBot1 to 10, CardCaddy and CardWareHouse, or you can sell cards to MTGOTradersBuyBot1 to 4, or your collection for actual money here. Just like Pete, I have bought cards from MTGOTraders for a long time, and sold my collection several times, and have never been disappointed.

The following tables list all the cards that, while I write, are worth more than $5 for Standard, $10 for Modern, and $20 for Legacy. I can't make comparisons to previous prices because I don't have the data from last week.

Weekly Highlights:

I don't have much to say about my own games, since I'm currently not playing Magic at all (again, just like Pete, but for slightly different reasons.) However, I want to address something Pete said in his last article, i.e. that one of the reasons why he lost the desire to play online is that MTGO is not a social experience. And while I can certainly add my voice to the choir that asks WotC for a better (meaning: at least barely functional) way to handle the contact list and the chats, the issue of never meeting people willing to socialize online is, to me, an issue of not looking in the right place. A client is much like a town: your experience is entirely dependent on the neighborhoods you happen to visit, and you need to know where the nicest corners are in order to get there. And where I'm concerned, I can't help but heartily suggest the PREs I mentioned in the decklists section. The people who inhabit them will happily embark in lengthy debates if given the occasion, and will joke with you and maybe get mad at you (in a dozen different languages!), but they rarely remain only a mute name on a screen. The PRE experience is wildly different than randomly searching for an opponent in one of the generic rooms. See you there, if you will.

Kuma

_Kumagoro_ 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.