Should be 3 Mythics in a box. Sealed it has potential value; opened it has an exact value. Gofy is adding $25 potential value to every box he is not in. Sure if you get these close to retail price (probably $200 and under) breaking even should not be too much of a problem once you add up all the commons that will still be worth a $1. The more you have paid for the box though the harder that will be.
I am opening my first box because I want to draft it. The second though may just go in the closet for a year so I can sell it later to recoup the loss from the first box (if it turns out to be bad).
Just to add to this, by my conservative* calculations, you already have parity at $240 a box, or ~$10 a booster.
Less conservative gets you like, $16 EV per booster, but 30% of that is commons, so not realistic. Almost $0.7 of that is only from Goyf existing.
0.2 Goyfs (or any other individual mythic) per box, so after your fifth box, you are likely to see an average of 1 Goyf.
* By conservative, I mean not counting Goyf (adds too much variance), not counting commons (their prices are inflated to compensate for low demand), and adding a cushion of 30% loss of current value for rares, and 20% for mythics. So, imagining you just couldn't sell rares and mythics at current prices, but at 70% for rares, 80% for mythics.
But the flavor text of Niv-Mizzet from Guildpact most certainly doesn't contain '|' or any other splitter character that I have noticed? Directly from both files:
#_"(Z–>)90º – (E–N²W)90ºt = 1"_#
I tried removing '²' and 'º', which no other card has, but the error persists.
The alert "Database not formatted" is thrown when an error of data format is found in the csv. May you please compress the two files in another format? I can't open .7z files. A .zip or .rar file would be perfect I will check the files in debug mode to see what raises an error.
I assumed it was a red herring, but that's just because both files pass the python CSV parsing routines in my client script... I don't really know.
Sure, here you go. You should really migrate to 7Zip though, way better compression :tongue:.
I dumped the full data of all sets last night (with "connectivity" to both sites) and I noticed three things:
Control/splitter characters used for the CSV need to be escaped in card text, or something. As of 01-27-2013, the flavor text of Magical Hacker is the only text that uses any of the default characters.
The rulings of Ertai, the Corrupted and Skyship Weatherlight are not captured. They were, three months ago. Probably Tahngarth, Talruum Hero's wouldn't extract either, if it had any. The foil version of these three cards had alternate art, that's the thing in common.
Gatherer Extractor can't fully open the resulting CSV file (13MB). It loads what seems like two thirds of it, then shows the error message "Database not formatted!".
I attacheduploaded two full dumps, the one from last night I mentioned, and another I did three months ago. Both can't be fully opened like I said. I'm on Windows 7 SP1 x64.
By the way, is there some prefered procedure to maintain a CSV with all sets, only by updating it, instead of redownloading everything each time? I redumped everything only because of the "Database not formatted!" error, I assume it can be done.
Windows does not allow a directory named "con" and if you follow the wikipedia list of MTG sets as the set code/directory names, the program will crash when it tries to save images for Conflux.
Nobody uses "CON" for exactly this reason. This is exclusively Microsoft's fault. The setcode for Conflux used everywhere I have seen is "CFX".
Conspiring to lower prices could be profitable given the demand elasticity of magic boosters. They could have met to agree to lower prices across the board to attract more customers in general without engaging in an endless price war with one store slashing prices after another.
That makes some sense, yeah. Specially if you can afford the cut by virtue being a big store in the local market (which at least two of those are.)
@DrewM: Then dennounce that to WoTC... the fines are well deserved.
This is the resolution of the investigation mentioned in this year old thread. I figured you'd like to know the followup.
The five stores mentioned based in the spanish capital Madrid, had a meeting to fix their public prices of Magic 2011 booster boxes. The CNC (which translates as "National Comission for Competence") recently fined them different amounts totaling around 7000€.
There end the facts.
There are second hand comments from an inside source that suggest the meeting was indeed to fix prices, but to lower them, not to jack them up.
That is still illegal, however I really question it. Why would you need to meet to lower prices? Just lower them by yourself. The need to conspire arises when you want to (artificially) up prices, because otherwise you just risk sending a chunk of your clients to the now cheaper competence.
So I find this particular rumor either false or kind of dumb of them stores :tongue:.
I must be doing something wrong, because testing those lists (that I think they are quite powerful) with 9 mountains, almost half of the time I draw into 3-4 montains, or 3 mountains-1valakut.
If I understand it correctly, if you draw 4 mountains, you lose. And with 7 lands in play, one being a valakut, you can only do 18 damage, that sometimes it is not enough. And in this case, if your opponent have lethal on play, you also lose.
Is this correct or am I skipping something? Could be better running a 10th dual?
You undestand it very incorrectly :tongue:. Having less than six mountains left in your deck just puts you into the double Valakut plan, which does require at least 8 lands in play (at least one of them being a mountain!) before playing Scapeshift. With two mountains in play, you can sac 6 other lands to Scapeshift for 2 Valakuts and 4 mountains; a total of 24 damage.
Do not get fixated on sacrificing everything to Scapeshift or holding lands in hand or something. Just engineer a situation that gets mountains to trigger for enough damage. It doesn't matter if some Valakuts or mountains had to be played before Scapeshift. Except for protection purposes of course, but the point is you don't autolose THAT easily.
Also remember that Cryptic Command can bounce one of your mountains for a last trigger. I do play 10 mountains via a second basic to more easily turn every topdecked ramp spell into a trigger, just in case things don't go according to plan, but it's not necessary.
Sometimes you even have to waste Valakut triggers killing creatures, but that was very rare in old Extended.
For the first 2 points, so you can kill with 18 Valakut damage, just attack with Sakuras et al (what? It happened constantly in old Extended xD.) Or get an 8th land into play, but that's not as funny.
Limited is a thing. Your metric only works if we define good as "constructed playable".
Yes, limited has worse cards, but it's still a widely played format. A card good in limited but bad in constructed is still going to make some people very happy.
I agree with you. I said only "playable" there because just before I said "playable in competitive constructed." I thought that was enough :p.
Is there widely avaliable data of limited? I'm not aware of anything else that some pick stats from MOL that WoTC publishes sometimes (but the data set is not public AFAIK.) There are top8 decks from limited Pro Tours and GPs, but that is very little data in a single "limited season" (whatever that is, I follow constructed events during PTQ seasons.)
I"m not sure 1/3 of RTR will reach a top 8 deck. I think if 15% of that set reach a top 8 deck i will be surprised.
It's an opinion, but you are saying that it's going to be like half as good in Standard constructed that the average of many other sets until now? It can perfectly be less than average, but half? The odds are not with you...
EDIT: I guess if talking about sets I should do the actual set percentages instead of asumming averages from whole seasons...
very very disapointed from return to ravnica expected more
The only metric for number of "good" cards in sets that has widely avaliable data is "playable in competitive constructed." I define "playable" as "it has shown up in at least one deck in any known top8."
If you use that metric, then the numbers are more like this:
Only 1/3 of the legal cards are playable in a format the size of Standard. 1/2 if you include MOL results (PTQs and Dailies.)
Only 1/10 of the legal cards are playable in a format the size of old Extended or current Modern. 1/5 with MOL included.
You can check my data in the first (big) table in this article. The labels are mostly in spanish, but they're easily understood.
I'm sure Return to Ravnica will have similar numbers.
Demigod wasnt all in red. It was red midrange. Most versions ran 24-25 land...
This is not true at all unless we are talking about different decks...
¿Deck with Demigod and eight Blood Moons (Magus of the Moon) in 2010's PT San Juan qualifier season, old Extended? 18 lands, 4 Chrome Mox and red rituals.
That's the only competitive deck with Demigod I can remember. Was there a Standard deck too or something?
Aaah I see now, it was ":symb::symr:". The deck I mean is obviously mono :symr:. Sorry, I mixed things up :tongue:.
:symu::symg: Ramp (with Time Warps) was a tier 3 deck in Standard for a little time.
In old Extended there was Gro-a-tog or a similar name: Psychatog with Life from the Loam + Onslaught cycling lands.
:symg::symw: Aggro Hate Bears has been a thing in multiple eras. Before and after Gaddock Teeg. Maverick is the current incarnation in Legacy, I think. I also remember the name Haterator.
The :symb::symr: Demigod deck was indeed called All-in Red, though I used the descriptive name Demigod Stompy.
There have been many different :symb::symg: "Rock" decks... also adding :symw:. Macey Rock (:symg::symb:) was the first one I remember that turned it more aggro and added equipment (Swords from Mirrodin block.)
But just with what my brother and I get drafting. I have never traded a or for a basic land, and I only had to buy Snow-covered Islands to play in Standard when Coldsnap was legal.
I store my four copies and then the rest goes into a booster box for limited purposes. Whenever that box gets too bloated, I donate any excess basic land to my LGS.
To play in my decks, I'm partial to Revised lands, but lately I have been trying to move to Zendikar full art ones. To spice things up and because Revised Plains and Island get mixed up very easily in games. By my opponents, I mean. I like to be pretty clear about game state, so I don't like that.
I realize this obviously isn't a court of law, but it's still a forum for debate and argument which is very similar if not essentially the same thing, and I just think we should all make more of a proactive effort to view the situation as objectively as possible which you've done along with myself and a few others (for the most part), then treat the situation the way a judge or jury would. [...] we all have the right to a defense, and presumed innocence throughout legal due process.
We apparently disagree on what that essence is... The Courts need to not legally punish the wrong man, a debate just needs to reach a logical conclusion about a matter. There are no consecuences in being wrong on a forum.
"Throughout legal due process." We are not doing legal due process here, nor did CFB. We don't need to. Context.
I acknowledge the context and realize this is all about trust, but trust is a two way street.
Not in this situation. At least not how I think you mean.
An employer does not owe an employee in a sensitive position any trust. He owes him money, which he supposedly gives and the employee receives. You can be sure that employee will be watched, like he should be.
It is this employee who has to explain any and all misunderstandings or suspicious situations, least he be fired from his sensitive position.
Imagine for a moment you're the suspect. You've worked for this company for years. You've established friendships with your colleagues, traveled, and were involved in countless hours of work and recreation together. Now assume for a moment that you already had 50 valuable chase standard rares because you pre-ordered them when they were cheap on a hunch that they would climb up. Just pretend this is the scenario. Now say but some astronomically unlikely coincidence, a large quantity of the same chase cards you own and are selling off on ebay after the prices have plateaued disappears from your employer's inventory, who in turn not only becomes suspicious and accuses you of a crime, but sends police to your house because you're so offended by the accusation alone that you decide to go silent. You presume that there's little you can say or do in your own defense since your employer likely won't believe you anyways, and would already be upset at the fact that you were selling any cards on your own personal time since it creates a professional conflict of interest with their business. Then you get fired, and a statement gets posted online implicating you in a serious crime, which subsequently causes a ripple effect which involves random message board users speculating and labeling you as a guilty thief who "obviously" (a word some people here like throwing around haphazardly even though things aren't obvious at all) stole whatever. How would you feel? Would you want to cooperate with police? Would you want to continue tweeting online? Probably not. You'd be frustrated, shocked, offended, angry, scared, and confused. You might alienate yourself for your own safety. You might even consider hurting yourself before the mob gets their hands on you. Who knows what the guy is thinking or planning on doing now? Nobody. But one thing is for certain. He deserves the same support that any criminal suspect is entitled to, and if you're unable or unwilling to offer that, I or someone like me will.
Being a "veteran" and a friend doesn't mean I didn't do it, it only makes it less likely (and hurt them the more if I did do it.) You are also speculating that this was their relationship, but I guess it's just for argument's sake.
¿Who accused who of a crime? It's my understanding this information is not on the CFB announcement. They only say TSG was "confronted" and "questioned" by the police. I'm only 100% sure that TSG is a suspect. There is no information of the exact legal proceedings, as well it shouldn't!
I'd explain myself to CFB, legal advice be damned. If I go silent, I would expect to be fired, which happened.
I don't like that they called the police before asking for an explanation first, but I only have the right to feel wronged as a friend, not as an employee. As an employee in a sensitive position, they are right in calling the police at any point. They can apologize later if he didn't do the deed.
What "the mob" thinks should be irrelevant to TSG. Unless it's a public relations problem and it affects his job, which it is and it does, but then shutting up is not helping. It could have been avoided by CFB, but it's either this or rampant especulation. Again, CFB did not call TSG a thief or anything of the sort, so they did what they could. I'd have done the same.
The only support a criminal suspect deserves is reserve of judgment until anything bad is proven. Everything else his other friends will provide, not us "the mob." Taking a side is not being objective. I'm just saying, I don't remember if you took a side or not xD.
A lack of explanation on his part is not "more than enough" to jump to the conclusion of his association for the missing cards
You misunderstood me there. I meant more than enough to fire and sever ties, not to conclude TSG did the deed. Those are different things.
"We fired and cut ties with TSG" is not equal to "TSG is a thief." I'd fire any untrustworthy person from a sensitive work position, whether he did anything in the end or not. Lack of explanation of a suspicious situation (or lack of transparency in the first place) is enough for me to label you untrustworthy. Ignoring any issue about silence due to legal advice, which is discussed elsewhere.
Why is everyone assuming all the artwork links to reprints? I doubt any of those pictures will be reprints - just because there is a Loxodon doesn't mean we'll be seeing Loxodon Hierarch again, especially when they mention a 'legendary' Loxodon in the article...
I believe this is just "anchoring effect"... People like to use what they already know before thinking about unknowns.
Many times I have thought some artwork would be a reprint, only to be proved wrong later, so I bias towards that - these art not being reprints xD.
Less conservative gets you like, $16 EV per booster, but 30% of that is commons, so not realistic. Almost $0.7 of that is only from Goyf existing.
0.2 Goyfs (or any other individual mythic) per box, so after your fifth box, you are likely to see an average of 1 Goyf.
* By conservative, I mean not counting Goyf (adds too much variance), not counting commons (their prices are inflated to compensate for low demand), and adding a cushion of 30% loss of current value for rares, and 20% for mythics. So, imagining you just couldn't sell rares and mythics at current prices, but at 70% for rares, 80% for mythics.
I tried removing '²' and 'º', which no other card has, but the error persists.
Sure, here you go. You should really migrate to 7Zip though, way better compression :tongue:.
- Control/splitter characters used for the CSV need to be escaped in card text, or something. As of 01-27-2013, the flavor text of Magical Hacker is the only text that uses any of the default characters.
- The rulings of Ertai, the Corrupted and Skyship Weatherlight are not captured. They were, three months ago. Probably Tahngarth, Talruum Hero's wouldn't extract either, if it had any. The foil version of these three cards had alternate art, that's the thing in common.
- Gatherer Extractor can't fully open the resulting CSV file (13MB). It loads what seems like two thirds of it, then shows the error message "Database not formatted!".
Iattacheduploaded two full dumps, the one from last night I mentioned, and another I did three months ago. Both can't be fully opened like I said. I'm on Windows 7 SP1 x64.By the way, is there some prefered procedure to maintain a CSV with all sets, only by updating it, instead of redownloading everything each time? I redumped everything only because of the "Database not formatted!" error, I assume it can be done.
Nobody uses "CON" for exactly this reason. This is exclusively Microsoft's fault. The setcode for Conflux used everywhere I have seen is "CFX".
@DrewM: Then dennounce that to WoTC... the fines are well deserved.
http://www.eleconomista.es/empresas-finanzas/noticias/4352943/10/12/Multa-a-cinco-distribuidores-de-cartas-Magic-por-fijar-precios.html
This is the resolution of the investigation mentioned in this year old thread. I figured you'd like to know the followup.
The five stores mentioned based in the spanish capital Madrid, had a meeting to fix their public prices of Magic 2011 booster boxes. The CNC (which translates as "National Comission for Competence") recently fined them different amounts totaling around 7000€.
There end the facts.
There are second hand comments from an inside source that suggest the meeting was indeed to fix prices, but to lower them, not to jack them up.
That is still illegal, however I really question it. Why would you need to meet to lower prices? Just lower them by yourself. The need to conspire arises when you want to (artificially) up prices, because otherwise you just risk sending a chunk of your clients to the now cheaper competence.
So I find this particular rumor either false or kind of dumb of them stores :tongue:.
Do not get fixated on sacrificing everything to Scapeshift or holding lands in hand or something. Just engineer a situation that gets mountains to trigger for enough damage. It doesn't matter if some Valakuts or mountains had to be played before Scapeshift. Except for protection purposes of course, but the point is you don't autolose THAT easily.
Also remember that Cryptic Command can bounce one of your mountains for a last trigger. I do play 10 mountains via a second basic to more easily turn every topdecked ramp spell into a trigger, just in case things don't go according to plan, but it's not necessary.
Sometimes you even have to waste Valakut triggers killing creatures, but that was very rare in old Extended.
For the first 2 points, so you can kill with 18 Valakut damage, just attack with Sakuras et al (what? It happened constantly in old Extended xD.) Or get an 8th land into play, but that's not as funny.
Is there widely avaliable data of limited? I'm not aware of anything else that some pick stats from MOL that WoTC publishes sometimes (but the data set is not public AFAIK.) There are top8 decks from limited Pro Tours and GPs, but that is very little data in a single "limited season" (whatever that is, I follow constructed events during PTQ seasons.)
It's an opinion, but you are saying that it's going to be like half as good in Standard constructed that the average of many other sets until now? It can perfectly be less than average, but half? The odds are not with you...
EDIT: I guess if talking about sets I should do the actual set percentages instead of asumming averages from whole seasons...
If you use that metric, then the numbers are more like this:
- Only 1/3 of the legal cards are playable in a format the size of Standard. 1/2 if you include MOL results (PTQs and Dailies.)
- Only 1/10 of the legal cards are playable in a format the size of old Extended or current Modern. 1/5 with MOL included.
You can check my data in the first (big) table in this article. The labels are mostly in spanish, but they're easily understood.I'm sure Return to Ravnica will have similar numbers.
¿Deck with Demigod and eight Blood Moons (Magus of the Moon) in 2010's PT San Juan qualifier season, old Extended? 18 lands, 4 Chrome Mox and red rituals.
That's the only competitive deck with Demigod I can remember. Was there a Standard deck too or something?
Aaah I see now, it was ":symb::symr:". The deck I mean is obviously mono :symr:. Sorry, I mixed things up :tongue:.
Current situation is unacceptable.
In old Extended there was Gro-a-tog or a similar name: Psychatog with Life from the Loam + Onslaught cycling lands.
:symg::symw: Aggro Hate Bears has been a thing in multiple eras. Before and after Gaddock Teeg. Maverick is the current incarnation in Legacy, I think. I also remember the name Haterator.
The :symb::symr: Demigod deck was indeed called All-in Red, though I used the descriptive name Demigod Stompy.
There have been many different :symb::symg: "Rock" decks... also adding :symw:. Macey Rock (:symg::symb:) was the first one I remember that turned it more aggro and added equipment (Swords from Mirrodin block.)
But just with what my brother and I get drafting. I have never traded a or for a basic land, and I only had to buy Snow-covered Islands to play in Standard when Coldsnap was legal.
I store my four copies and then the rest goes into a booster box for limited purposes. Whenever that box gets too bloated, I donate any excess basic land to my LGS.
To play in my decks, I'm partial to Revised lands, but lately I have been trying to move to Zendikar full art ones. To spice things up and because Revised Plains and Island get mixed up very easily in games. By my opponents, I mean. I like to be pretty clear about game state, so I don't like that.
"Throughout legal due process." We are not doing legal due process here, nor did CFB. We don't need to. Context.
Not in this situation. At least not how I think you mean.
An employer does not owe an employee in a sensitive position any trust. He owes him money, which he supposedly gives and the employee receives. You can be sure that employee will be watched, like he should be.
It is this employee who has to explain any and all misunderstandings or suspicious situations, least he be fired from his sensitive position.
Being a "veteran" and a friend doesn't mean I didn't do it, it only makes it less likely (and hurt them the more if I did do it.) You are also speculating that this was their relationship, but I guess it's just for argument's sake.
¿Who accused who of a crime? It's my understanding this information is not on the CFB announcement. They only say TSG was "confronted" and "questioned" by the police. I'm only 100% sure that TSG is a suspect. There is no information of the exact legal proceedings, as well it shouldn't!
I'd explain myself to CFB, legal advice be damned. If I go silent, I would expect to be fired, which happened.
I don't like that they called the police before asking for an explanation first, but I only have the right to feel wronged as a friend, not as an employee. As an employee in a sensitive position, they are right in calling the police at any point. They can apologize later if he didn't do the deed.
What "the mob" thinks should be irrelevant to TSG. Unless it's a public relations problem and it affects his job, which it is and it does, but then shutting up is not helping. It could have been avoided by CFB, but it's either this or rampant especulation. Again, CFB did not call TSG a thief or anything of the sort, so they did what they could. I'd have done the same.
The only support a criminal suspect deserves is reserve of judgment until anything bad is proven. Everything else his other friends will provide, not us "the mob." Taking a side is not being objective. I'm just saying, I don't remember if you took a side or not xD.
You misunderstood me there. I meant more than enough to fire and sever ties, not to conclude TSG did the deed. Those are different things.
"We fired and cut ties with TSG" is not equal to "TSG is a thief." I'd fire any untrustworthy person from a sensitive work position, whether he did anything in the end or not. Lack of explanation of a suspicious situation (or lack of transparency in the first place) is enough for me to label you untrustworthy. Ignoring any issue about silence due to legal advice, which is discussed elsewhere.
Many times I have thought some artwork would be a reprint, only to be proved wrong later, so I bias towards that - these art not being reprints xD.