This is first time I've heard of re-drafting because I only do drafts online in MTGO.
I understand the idea of encouraging optimal draft picks but I would probably be upset if I cracked a Jace but didn't place #1 in the pod.
It would be a lot more overhead, but if you trust your store... one idea is to have the owner register all the packs and then repackage and distribute to the drafters randomly.
At the end of the draft, you get to keep the packs you "opened" instead of the cards you picked.
Probably won't happen because of the extra work and effort involved, but seems that would be the best of both worlds.
Wouldn't that considerably reduce booster sales? I mean cards like Jace are what sell the sets, as the dealers are going to be opening boxes to get their hands on them. If they can just shell out a fixed sum like that, it would save them a lot of money (which would mean that wizards make a hell of a lot less money).
Yeah, I think doing something like this would actually hurt WotC's revenue and probably won't actually make things "better" for players of the game.
At the end of the day, the competitive players are still paying high prices for cardboard and the dealers and Average Joe who cracked a Jace are actually worse off.
When you look at your "earnings" on MTGO you also have to factor in the overhead of actually converting the tickets/cards to real world money. This usually involves a third-party eating up your profit margin (it could be an online dealer or just service fees on ebay for example). So I would tend to think that even if you were a really good player, there would be a significant difference between spending 40 hours a week on MTGO and earning money at a min. wage job.
I recently pulled a foil Lavaclaw Reaches in a ZZW draft and thought, "Cool! Money rare". After the draft, I proceeded to try and sell said card for 1 ticket less than what mtgotraders.com had it listed for but no one was interested.
Is it just me, or does anyone ever pull a Foil and wish they had pulled a non-foil instead? It seems it's so much harder to sell the foil unless you're willing to sell it for almost the same as non-foil version.
Is it even worth spending 24ish tickets on a Sealed Event?
There are some high priced rares in the set but what are the chances you'll even break even?
I don't plan on playing Legacy. Maybe I should just stick to ZZW?
This is all speculation, but I have a feeling there will be a shift towards slower decks. From what we've seen so far RoE rewards big late game plays and playing creatures with Defender.
This means that unless decks like Vampires and WW/Ally get a lot of boosts from the new set (I doubt it) the aggro-based strategies are not going to cut it once RoE joins the block.
If anything, I anticipate UW Control and maybe RG Valakut to become even stronger.
well, that depends, has the Magic Online Player Rewards program ever released Judge Foils? If so then I wager that at some point Force of Will will be released in the Magic Online Player Rewards program above and beyond just its release as a Masters Edition Card. At least that is my guess.
Other than that, we are getting a Masters Edition 4, and I will wager that there will be reprints from earlier Masters Editions in it. Though whether we get Force of Will in said Masters Edition is hugely up for debate.
The promo cards route is a possibility, but I don't think there will be a significant impact on the price too much due to the limited availability.
I think the only way the price will drop significantly is if it is released as part of an online "print run" (i.e. released again in another Masters Edition set).
Sets prior to Mirage will not be released online. Select cards get released in Masters Edition sets.
Force of Will was released in the first Masters Edition already. So unless they change their mind about releasing early sets, or they decide to reprint Force of Will in new Masters Edition sets then you will not get any new FoW into the system. Hence the high price.
The first batch of questions are about drafting. I was browsing through the draft section and decided I'll probably start out with 4-3-2-2 drafting. Now I heard that this is single elimination. My question about this is how does that work? Do I only have to beat my opponent once to win that game? Also if I end up loosing to my opponent would I be out of the draft?
Don't do 4-3-2-2. It's arguably the worst one (lots of threads in the forums regarding why). If you are really good at drafting, go for 8-4. Otherwise, go for Swiss. You'll come out with better prizes on average.
Yes, 4-3-2-2 is single elimination. You are out of the draft as soon as you lose a Match. One Match consists of best 2 out of 3 games. First player to win 2 games wins the match.
Now into the game of drafting. I usually only draft with friends of mine so I'm wondering if there is a time limit to choose a card? If so how long would that be? After all the drafting picking is complete now I need to make a deck. Do I have to do something special to find the cards that I drafted or does a window open up with everything I have?
Yes, there is a time limit to for each pick. I think it's something like 1 minute.
Yes, a window will open up with the cards you picked.
You can check out the draft videos posted by pros like LSV on channelfireball.com (they're posted on youtube). It will show you the MTGO draft interface.
Finally my last question on this topic. How does the actual match operate? Do I get thrown into a game with the opponent I'm set for or do I have to click on a game?
You join a draft queue. When the queue has enough players joined, you start drafting cards. After all picks, you have 10 mins to build a deck. After all decks built, you are paired with opponents and matches will start.
Here's a quote I pulled from Wizards help site:
Drafting & Deck Construction:
The 15 cards from the first booster pack are displayed on the draft screen. Choose one of these cards to keep and play with, and the remaining cards are passed to the next player. When this process is complete, all players will have 15 total cards. Then, this process is repeated with the next booster pack, except now the cards are passed in the opposite direction. The third booster is passed in the same direction as the first. For each pick, there is a timer on the left side of the screen. If you do not choose a card before this timer reaches :00, a card will be selected at random for you.
After all cards are drafted, you have 10 minutes to build a deck from the 45 cards you have drafted. This deck must be a minimum of 40 cards (icluding basic land, which is provided via the "Add Lands" button at the top of the deckbuilding screen). You do not have to draft or own basic lands you wish to play with, but you also do not keep the basic land cards after the tournament.
All cards you do not use in your main deck will form your sideboard. After games 1 and 2, you have 3 minutes to put any number of cards from your sideboard into your main deck, and any number of cards from your main deck into your sideboard. You may also add or remove any basic lands. The final deck you choose for each game must be at least 40 cards. For game 1 of each match, you will play the main deck you built during the initial deck construction period.
Daily Events are for decently skilled players, the challenge of these events is somewhere between a Pro-Tour Qualifier and a Large Friday Night Magic.
8-Player Constructed Queues are usually for people who are just getting started at constructed tournaments. The pay out is not nearly as good as either Daily or Premier events, and the events are single elimination unlike Premier and Daily. However the challenge is not as high.
Actually, I'd say that 8 player constructed is probably a higher challenge because the single elimination structure is much less forgiving of bad plays and un-tuned decks.
Alright I accept this, but I think the very opposite is true as well. If you buy this 80 ticket card, you are making an investment knowing you can cash out at 80 anytime you want, possibly even more disregarding an influx of more cards.
If you look at it through this light, WoTC could actually be making multiple 80's off of the same bit of binary code. And that my friends is messed up. In fact I would suspect someone would rather spend tickets than paypal, just for the fact that a tickets rebuy value is something like... .94 to .84 or so. meaning you actually get it cheaper.
If you think about this WoTC is making multiple dollars off of almost every virtual card they have up right now.
That's a good point. But I think you also have to consider that WotC doesn't set the $80 price tag. The market does, and if they are benefiting from it that's not really their fault now is it?
Secondly, you can also argue that for every virtual card WotC makes on MTGO, the costs to maintain said card is ongoing forever (until MTGO shuts down).
Whereas with a physical card they just print it, package it, and ship it to the store. It's a one time cost to WotC only. So if the cost of each virtual card is ongoing, then I don't think it's unfair they are making money off of it multiple times.
I'd say that Jace is an anomaly and not the norm. Plus there are plenty of cheaper T1 decks in current ZEN block that can beat UW control. Vamps isn't as good as it used to be but is pretty inexpensive to build since it doesn't need any of the WWK mythics nor manlands. White Weenie/Ally is also good and inexpensive.
A) The Garruk's are only around $10, 4x$10=$40, $40<$50
B) The Garruk's will rotate out in September (if they are not reprinted in M11). Jace 2.0 will be around for another year at least.
C) Garruk's are not part of any hot deck at the moment so are in less demand compared to the Jace. You should be able to get better trade.
I cracked Jace during WWK release in MTGO and sold it for 40 tix (around $40). It's over 50 tix at the moment... kicking myself every time
I understand the idea of encouraging optimal draft picks but I would probably be upset if I cracked a Jace but didn't place #1 in the pod.
It would be a lot more overhead, but if you trust your store... one idea is to have the owner register all the packs and then repackage and distribute to the drafters randomly.
At the end of the draft, you get to keep the packs you "opened" instead of the cards you picked.
Probably won't happen because of the extra work and effort involved, but seems that would be the best of both worlds.
Yeah, I think doing something like this would actually hurt WotC's revenue and probably won't actually make things "better" for players of the game.
At the end of the day, the competitive players are still paying high prices for cardboard and the dealers and Average Joe who cracked a Jace are actually worse off.
Is it just me, or does anyone ever pull a Foil and wish they had pulled a non-foil instead? It seems it's so much harder to sell the foil unless you're willing to sell it for almost the same as non-foil version.
There are some high priced rares in the set but what are the chances you'll even break even?
I don't plan on playing Legacy. Maybe I should just stick to ZZW?
This means that unless decks like Vampires and WW/Ally get a lot of boosts from the new set (I doubt it) the aggro-based strategies are not going to cut it once RoE joins the block.
If anything, I anticipate UW Control and maybe RG Valakut to become even stronger.
The promo cards route is a possibility, but I don't think there will be a significant impact on the price too much due to the limited availability.
I think the only way the price will drop significantly is if it is released as part of an online "print run" (i.e. released again in another Masters Edition set).
Force of Will was released in the first Masters Edition already. So unless they change their mind about releasing early sets, or they decide to reprint Force of Will in new Masters Edition sets then you will not get any new FoW into the system. Hence the high price.
Don't do 4-3-2-2. It's arguably the worst one (lots of threads in the forums regarding why). If you are really good at drafting, go for 8-4. Otherwise, go for Swiss. You'll come out with better prizes on average.
Yes, 4-3-2-2 is single elimination. You are out of the draft as soon as you lose a Match. One Match consists of best 2 out of 3 games. First player to win 2 games wins the match.
Yes, there is a time limit to for each pick. I think it's something like 1 minute.
Yes, a window will open up with the cards you picked.
You can check out the draft videos posted by pros like LSV on channelfireball.com (they're posted on youtube). It will show you the MTGO draft interface.
You join a draft queue. When the queue has enough players joined, you start drafting cards. After all picks, you have 10 mins to build a deck. After all decks built, you are paired with opponents and matches will start.
Here's a quote I pulled from Wizards help site:
"Bear" is supposed to be 2/2 creature for 2 mana with no other abilities.
Actually, I'd say that 8 player constructed is probably a higher challenge because the single elimination structure is much less forgiving of bad plays and un-tuned decks.
Covered here.
That's a good point. But I think you also have to consider that WotC doesn't set the $80 price tag. The market does, and if they are benefiting from it that's not really their fault now is it?
Secondly, you can also argue that for every virtual card WotC makes on MTGO, the costs to maintain said card is ongoing forever (until MTGO shuts down).
Whereas with a physical card they just print it, package it, and ship it to the store. It's a one time cost to WotC only. So if the cost of each virtual card is ongoing, then I don't think it's unfair they are making money off of it multiple times.