In layman's terms, I think Pauper is the bomb diggity. I mean seriously, what an awesome format. But, it is often very hard to fit a Pauper daily into my schedule, without staying up until 2:30 AM (east coast time) and waking up at 6:00 AM the next day. I'm not the busiest man in the world, so I can't be alone in this. Another problem lies in the fact there are far less Pauper daily events than there are daily events in other formats.
What would help? If there were Pauper 8-man tournaments in the Constructed Queues room. I have a feeling they would fill up quick. I am relatively new to MTGO (played for 3 months, but have played MTG for years) so I have some questions that maybe you all could fill me in on:
(1) Is it plausible to think that, if we got enough people rallied around the cause, we could lobby MTGO to add Pauper 8-mans to the Constructed Queues?
(2) What does MTGO take into account when deciding the frequency of events in a certain format? For example, in paper magic I know Wizards hosts few Legacy events because a strong Legacy fan-base doesn't make them much money, compared to the other formats. Everyone needs old cards they buy from card shops, not WotC. Is it the same line of thought for MTGO events?
(3) Have there ever been Pauper 8-mans in the Constructed Queue room? How long ago, and why did they stop?
I can't speak to all your questions, but when they redid the schedule for Daily Events to reduce the number of Pauper events it came down to basically popularity and money. Wizards will always champion Limited, Standard, and Modern (probably in that order) first because it keeps people spending money. A format with a larger card pool like Vintage, Legacy, Classic doesn't require a lot of buying to compete. Each new set is lucky to add 2-3 cards to the Pauper metagame and that really doesn't sell packs.
I do agree though as much as I'd love to play more Daily Events I just don't have the time to fit them in, but we do at least get 2-man queues. Unfortunately, and someone who does them more often can correct me if I'm wrong, but the payout isn't great.
2-mans are useful for testing, but the EV isn't great; notably, 2-mans lose money pretty harshly even if your MWP is 50%. Both players pay 2 tickets and the event pays out 1 pack; packs are not worth 4 tickets, and in fact, the packs paid out by 2-mans are often worth a lot less. They're worthwhile if you have a fairly high MWP and they're paying out packs that are worth something, but even then, if you have some sort of super secret tech that breaks the format, or if you're some kind of Constructed scientist that plays better than everyone else, you're better off playing in dailies.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
Pauper 2-man events cost 2 tickets and handout 1 M14 booster pack. M14 boosters can sell for around 3.6 tickets. So yes, if you had a 50% win percentage you would be losing money/tickets. In the past they have handed out boosters that are worth less.
that's always the trick with them, if you get back 3 (which was the norm for a long time) then you were +1 on wins -2 on losses, though I was doing great in them back when I could play Infect and get a ton of games in within a short period of time thanks to the deck's 3 turn clock
8-mans not being available to the 2nd most popular format on MTGO seems like a huge non-bo to me. Who can we talk to about that? One of my biggest problems with MTGO is that MTGO doesn't have a figurehead, like Mark Rosewater, that we can personally petition on Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/whatever. I'm sure they do, but I don't know who it is.
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Occasionally streaming Pauper. Stop by Here for chatting and viewing pleasure!
8-mans not being available to the 2nd most popular format on MTGO seems like a huge non-bo to me. Who can we talk to about that? One of my biggest problems with MTGO is that MTGO doesn't have a figurehead, like Mark Rosewater, that we can personally petition on Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/whatever. I'm sure they do, but I don't know who it is.
I would tweet @mturian (Mike Turian), @mtgworth (Worth Wollpert), and @MagicOnline (the general MTGO Twitter account). If the first two people aren't the right ones to hear about it, someone on @MagicOnline will likely retweet it to whoever is.
I would tweet @mturian (Mike Turian), @mtgworth (Worth Wollpert), and @MagicOnline (the general MTGO Twitter account). If the first two people aren't the right ones to hear about it, someone on @MagicOnline will likely retweet it to whoever is.
Sound advice, oddly enough Twitter has become one of the best outlets for the community to reach people who can impact change
(1) Is it plausible to think that, if we got enough people rallied around the cause, we could lobby MTGO to add Pauper 8-mans to the Constructed Queues?
Yes, I think this is actually plausible. Unlike daily events, 8-person queues are EV neutral from WoTC's perspective - they take in 48tix entry fees and payout 12 packs, which means the packs are going for full retail. They do convert tix to packs so the introduction of these would slightly depress secondary market pack prices, but I think these would be of limited enough popularity (given their pretty poor EV from the player's perspective) that the effect wouldn't be too great. The only other consideration would be whether they hurt the frequency of other 8-person queues firing, especially standard which is the main format WoTC wants to support from a business perspective, but again I don't think that'd be a huge consideration.
If the demand was there, this is something I could certainly see happening.
(2) What does MTGO take into account when deciding the frequency of events in a certain format? For example, in paper magic I know Wizards hosts few Legacy events because a strong Legacy fan-base doesn't make them much money, compared to the other formats. Everyone needs old cards they buy from card shops, not WotC. Is it the same line of thought for MTGO events?
It's all guesswork because WoTC never talks about this stuff, but it seems a pretty safe assumption that standard is the format WoTC cares most about from a business perspective given that it drives demand for new cards and so keeps the secondary market value of the current draft set high, which helps fire more drafts (which are the real cash cow on MTGO). The last time they re-did the daily events schedule, they slashed the number of pauper and momir events each week (by something like 1/2 and 2/3 iirc) which probably indicates that they see them as "gateway" play formats and not where they really want people to be spending their main play time on.
Also, something else to keep in mind is that daily events payout more in (retail) pack value than they take in in entry fees - they directly "lose" money for WoTC (in an opportunity cost sense) and so are probably only justified in a broader sense to promote interest in constructed formats.
Hate to bring up an older post, but thought there wasn't a better place to post this...
As part of the Academy Showcase, a monthly event run by myself and sponsored by MTGOAcademy.com, we're going to run two Pauper 8-man events.
For those interested in joining the first one will be open for registration on November 10th at 10:30am EST in the room AcademyShowcase. Once we have eight people it will begin. The start time for the second will open at 3pm EST. Those who have registered for the earlier one will not have the opportunity to join the second right away. If there is a need to fill the second event then I will start taking people who played earlier at 3:30pm and it will also begin as soon as it is full. Prize payout for each event will be as follows:
1st - 6 tix 2nd - 4 tix 3rd - 2 tix 4th - 2 tix
Any questions can be asked here, PM'd, or hit me on Twitter @MTGOJustSin
think people need to keep in mind that the only reason they are giving us 8-mans is because the only event up to this point they let us play in was Dailies and by removing those they provided no events for Pauper players
it isn't so much a gift as pity, if they bring back DEs I wouldn't be surprised if they removed the 8-mans
What I want to see is whether they report winning decklists from the 8-mans. If not, things are going to get weird in this metagame.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Well, as the OP of this thread, I assure you that this was not the result I was hoping for. 8-man queues are great, but when I have spare time on the weekend I always prefer daily events because in the long-run you have a much better chance of earning more tickets than you spend.
Obviously, my hope was that we could have 8-man queues AND daily events. I guess that was too much to ask for.
I read the article linked from the downtime as well as the article linked within that article. Wizards is really taking to heart all of the uproar from that MOCS event that crashed last Saturday. Thanks a lot Brian Kibler.
I'm no expert on computers but I guess suspending daily events will help the client run smoother and crash less. But I am still a little bamboozled by all of this. Did Wizards seriously suspend ALL daily events? Wow. I share in the concern of others as to whether there will still be decklists posted daily on the MTGO website. I use those to assess the meta in pauper as well as other formats. Plus, it gives me something to do when I ride the train everyday...
Frankly, I'm thrilled. Three hours is a lot easier to find than four, and three hours whenever I have some free time is awesome. I realize that losing DEs is bad news for mtgo as a whole
It is not three hours, it is at most three hours. It's a big difference as these are single elimination and more importantly you pay the same to join and win less. I think the bigger issue here as people point out is that it might be detrimental to the format in the long run, but I won't "the sky is falling" on that until I hear what their plan is (something many should consider)
Hope that's sarcasm, anyone who honestly thinks this has to do with Kibler's rant is unfortunately quite misled. Of all the conspiracy theories out there on this, this one is the most ridiculous.
Hope that's sarcasm, anyone who honestly thinks this has to do with Kibler's rant is unfortunately quite misled. Of all the conspiracy theories out there on this, this one is the most ridiculous.
It was sarcasm.
I didn't even take the rant seriously. I know he is a Hall of Famer but Starcity and others shouldn't even post rants like that. Just because he's a Hall of Famer doesn't mean you have to put the content of his stream-of-consciousness angry babble on the front page of your website. If I wanted to listen to him complain about his first world problems and how busy his day is and how MOCS crash ruined his epic weekend, I would follow his Twitter.
It is not three hours, it is at most three hours. It's a big difference as these are single elimination and more importantly you pay the same to join and win less. I think the bigger issue here as people point out is that it might be detrimental to the format in the long run, but I won't "the sky is falling" on that until I hear what their plan is (something many should consider)
I share concern here as well. Whether these are worth playing will largely be a function of what bots are willing to pay for packs. I haven't checked in a few days, but bots are currently paying about 3.4-3.5 tix for Theros packs? Contrast this with M14 packs, which dwindled around 3 tix per pack for a while and, towards the end of their cycle in prize payout, were being bought for LESS THAN THREE TICKETS. So, in that scenario, the ticket exchange would be as follows:
Lose in first round: -6 tickets
Win in first round, lose in second round: 0 / break event
Win in first/second round, lose in third: +3 tickets
Win entire 8-man: +9 tickets
See urban dictionary definition of "getting ripped off" or "scam"
Having said that, for now I will be patient and wait for Wizards to unfold more of what is to come, as JustSin suggested.
I share concern here as well. Whether these are worth playing will largely be a function of what bots are willing to pay for packs. I haven't checked in a few days, but bots are currently paying about 3.4-3.5 tix for Theros packs? Contrast this with M14 packs, which dwindled around 3 tix per pack for a while and, towards the end of their cycle in prize payout, were being bought for LESS THAN THREE TICKETS. So, in that scenario, the ticket exchange would be as follows:
Lose in first round: -6 tickets
Win in first round, lose in second round: 0 / break event
Win in first/second round, lose in third: +3 tickets
Win entire 8-man: +9 tickets
See urban dictionary definition of "getting ripped off" or "scam"
Having said that, for now I will be patient and wait for Wizards to unfold more of what is to come, as JustSin suggested.
Wow.. I had no idea they still wanted 6 tix for a 12 pack payout. They value the packs at 4 each obviously.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Lose in first round: -6 tickets
Win in first round, lose in second round: 0 / break event
Win in first/second round, lose in third: +3 tickets
Win entire 8-man: +9 tickets
You know this is positive EV right? Most people wouldn't complain about that.
You know this is positive EV right? Most people wouldn't complain about that.
That math goes like this: 12 packs out between 8 players, at a 50% winrate you would need packs to be 4 tickets to break even.
Since packs are never going to be 4 tickets (since they have a price ceiling when they are being sold by the store) the event is always going to be overall negative EV for the average player.
That math goes like this: 12 packs out between 8 players, at a 50% winrate you would need packs to be 4 tickets to break even.
Since packs are never going to be 4 tickets (since they have a price ceiling when they are being sold by the store) the event is always going to be overall negative EV for the average player.
I would not say that a 50/50 win rate qualifies as an average player. That person sounds bad. Over all of magic obviously it's 50/50(since there is always a winner and loser), but I would say your average player is better than that.
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Standard BW Midrange
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What would help? If there were Pauper 8-man tournaments in the Constructed Queues room. I have a feeling they would fill up quick. I am relatively new to MTGO (played for 3 months, but have played MTG for years) so I have some questions that maybe you all could fill me in on:
(1) Is it plausible to think that, if we got enough people rallied around the cause, we could lobby MTGO to add Pauper 8-mans to the Constructed Queues?
(2) What does MTGO take into account when deciding the frequency of events in a certain format? For example, in paper magic I know Wizards hosts few Legacy events because a strong Legacy fan-base doesn't make them much money, compared to the other formats. Everyone needs old cards they buy from card shops, not WotC. Is it the same line of thought for MTGO events?
(3) Have there ever been Pauper 8-mans in the Constructed Queue room? How long ago, and why did they stop?
I do agree though as much as I'd love to play more Daily Events I just don't have the time to fit them in, but we do at least get 2-man queues. Unfortunately, and someone who does them more often can correct me if I'm wrong, but the payout isn't great.
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
Monthly Academy Showcase!
An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
Pauper Meta Analysis & What Wizards Left Out!
Found at MTGO Academy!! Same Great Series, Same Great Content, Great New Home!! (yes that is me shamelessly trolling for more readers :))
Check me out on Twitter & Get a little MTGO Therapy
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
Monthly Academy Showcase!
An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
Pauper Meta Analysis & What Wizards Left Out!
Found at MTGO Academy!! Same Great Series, Same Great Content, Great New Home!! (yes that is me shamelessly trolling for more readers :))
Check me out on Twitter & Get a little MTGO Therapy
Fires :symr:f Salvation
I would tweet @mturian (Mike Turian), @mtgworth (Worth Wollpert), and @MagicOnline (the general MTGO Twitter account). If the first two people aren't the right ones to hear about it, someone on @MagicOnline will likely retweet it to whoever is.
UW UW Gideon Control WU
UWR Loose Control RWU
GR Scapeshift RG
RU Storm UR
Sound advice, oddly enough Twitter has become one of the best outlets for the community to reach people who can impact change
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
Monthly Academy Showcase!
An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
Pauper Meta Analysis & What Wizards Left Out!
Found at MTGO Academy!! Same Great Series, Same Great Content, Great New Home!! (yes that is me shamelessly trolling for more readers :))
Check me out on Twitter & Get a little MTGO Therapy
Retweet so they can't ignore us
Fires :symr:f Salvation
Fires :symr:f Salvation
Yes, I think this is actually plausible. Unlike daily events, 8-person queues are EV neutral from WoTC's perspective - they take in 48tix entry fees and payout 12 packs, which means the packs are going for full retail. They do convert tix to packs so the introduction of these would slightly depress secondary market pack prices, but I think these would be of limited enough popularity (given their pretty poor EV from the player's perspective) that the effect wouldn't be too great. The only other consideration would be whether they hurt the frequency of other 8-person queues firing, especially standard which is the main format WoTC wants to support from a business perspective, but again I don't think that'd be a huge consideration.
If the demand was there, this is something I could certainly see happening.
It's all guesswork because WoTC never talks about this stuff, but it seems a pretty safe assumption that standard is the format WoTC cares most about from a business perspective given that it drives demand for new cards and so keeps the secondary market value of the current draft set high, which helps fire more drafts (which are the real cash cow on MTGO). The last time they re-did the daily events schedule, they slashed the number of pauper and momir events each week (by something like 1/2 and 2/3 iirc) which probably indicates that they see them as "gateway" play formats and not where they really want people to be spending their main play time on.
Also, something else to keep in mind is that daily events payout more in (retail) pack value than they take in in entry fees - they directly "lose" money for WoTC (in an opportunity cost sense) and so are probably only justified in a broader sense to promote interest in constructed formats.
As part of the Academy Showcase, a monthly event run by myself and sponsored by MTGOAcademy.com, we're going to run two Pauper 8-man events.
For those interested in joining the first one will be open for registration on November 10th at 10:30am EST in the room AcademyShowcase. Once we have eight people it will begin. The start time for the second will open at 3pm EST. Those who have registered for the earlier one will not have the opportunity to join the second right away. If there is a need to fill the second event then I will start taking people who played earlier at 3:30pm and it will also begin as soon as it is full. Prize payout for each event will be as follows:
1st - 6 tix
2nd - 4 tix
3rd - 2 tix
4th - 2 tix
Any questions can be asked here, PM'd, or hit me on Twitter @MTGOJustSin
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
Monthly Academy Showcase!
An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
Pauper Meta Analysis & What Wizards Left Out!
Found at MTGO Academy!! Same Great Series, Same Great Content, Great New Home!! (yes that is me shamelessly trolling for more readers :))
Check me out on Twitter & Get a little MTGO Therapy
WW Lifelink Equipment
Burn
Modern:
Bant Eldrazi
Merfolk
Abzan Company
EDH:
Mono-Green Omnath
Mono-White Odric Soup
Mono-Blue Muzzio
Mono-Red Feldon
it isn't so much a gift as pity, if they bring back DEs I wouldn't be surprised if they removed the 8-mans
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
Monthly Academy Showcase!
An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
Pauper Meta Analysis & What Wizards Left Out!
Found at MTGO Academy!! Same Great Series, Same Great Content, Great New Home!! (yes that is me shamelessly trolling for more readers :))
Check me out on Twitter & Get a little MTGO Therapy
Obviously, my hope was that we could have 8-man queues AND daily events. I guess that was too much to ask for.
I read the article linked from the downtime as well as the article linked within that article. Wizards is really taking to heart all of the uproar from that MOCS event that crashed last Saturday. Thanks a lot Brian Kibler.
I'm no expert on computers but I guess suspending daily events will help the client run smoother and crash less. But I am still a little bamboozled by all of this. Did Wizards seriously suspend ALL daily events? Wow. I share in the concern of others as to whether there will still be decklists posted daily on the MTGO website. I use those to assess the meta in pauper as well as other formats. Plus, it gives me something to do when I ride the train everyday...
It is not three hours, it is at most three hours. It's a big difference as these are single elimination and more importantly you pay the same to join and win less. I think the bigger issue here as people point out is that it might be detrimental to the format in the long run, but I won't "the sky is falling" on that until I hear what their plan is (something many should consider)
Hope that's sarcasm, anyone who honestly thinks this has to do with Kibler's rant is unfortunately quite misled. Of all the conspiracy theories out there on this, this one is the most ridiculous.
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
Classic
BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
Monthly Academy Showcase!
An Introduction to Competitive Pauper! *Updated*
Pauper Meta Analysis & What Wizards Left Out!
Found at MTGO Academy!! Same Great Series, Same Great Content, Great New Home!! (yes that is me shamelessly trolling for more readers :))
Check me out on Twitter & Get a little MTGO Therapy
It was sarcasm.
I didn't even take the rant seriously. I know he is a Hall of Famer but Starcity and others shouldn't even post rants like that. Just because he's a Hall of Famer doesn't mean you have to put the content of his stream-of-consciousness angry babble on the front page of your website. If I wanted to listen to him complain about his first world problems and how busy his day is and how MOCS crash ruined his epic weekend, I would follow his Twitter.
I share concern here as well. Whether these are worth playing will largely be a function of what bots are willing to pay for packs. I haven't checked in a few days, but bots are currently paying about 3.4-3.5 tix for Theros packs? Contrast this with M14 packs, which dwindled around 3 tix per pack for a while and, towards the end of their cycle in prize payout, were being bought for LESS THAN THREE TICKETS. So, in that scenario, the ticket exchange would be as follows:
Lose in first round: -6 tickets
Win in first round, lose in second round: 0 / break event
Win in first/second round, lose in third: +3 tickets
Win entire 8-man: +9 tickets
See urban dictionary definition of "getting ripped off" or "scam"
Having said that, for now I will be patient and wait for Wizards to unfold more of what is to come, as JustSin suggested.
Wow.. I had no idea they still wanted 6 tix for a 12 pack payout. They value the packs at 4 each obviously.
You know this is positive EV right? Most people wouldn't complain about that.
BW Midrange
That math goes like this: 12 packs out between 8 players, at a 50% winrate you would need packs to be 4 tickets to break even.
Since packs are never going to be 4 tickets (since they have a price ceiling when they are being sold by the store) the event is always going to be overall negative EV for the average player.
U Delver Fae
UR Nivix Fiend
UWB Esper Sage
G
InfectRIPU
Fissure PostRIPUR
Izzet PostRIPUBR
The Perfect Pauper StormRIPModern:
UW
EggsRIPGR Tron
Legacy:
0 Manaless Dredge
UWR Miracles
UWB Stoneblade and Deathblade
UWR Delver
UWR Landstill
I would not say that a 50/50 win rate qualifies as an average player. That person sounds bad. Over all of magic obviously it's 50/50(since there is always a winner and loser), but I would say your average player is better than that.
BW Midrange