I have to remind myself that I might beat him 7 out of 10 matches, but we only get to play one.
And yes, at this point in the history of Magic, considering the resources freely available, someone building some greedy, horrible mana base is not really trying to be good. They're basically goofing around. That's fine, they're entitled to it, but putting in the effort to hone strategy is supposed to pay off.
You just said it yourself. Your deck will win 7 out of 10 matches. So your "putting in the effort to hone strategy" does pay off. It just doesn't win you every match, nor should it.
They want new people introduced to MODO to play Phantom Drafts and sealed and not the other tournaments, since that it a higher profit margin.
How so? Phantom at least seems like a lower profit margin to me. Profit margin of phantom sealed:
- Each phantom point costs 3/5 of a ticket to buy from Wizards (you put in 10 tickets and you get the equivalent of 6 phantom points)
- Wizards collects 80 tickets entry fee
- Wizards pays out 16 + (3 * 8) + (3 * 4) + 2 phantom points, for a total of 54 phantom points, worth the equivalent of 32.4 tickets
- Wizards nets 47.6 tickets
Compare to swiss draft, which is similar in terms of player time spent in the event:
- Wizards collects 112 tickets entry fees
- Wizards pays out (3 + (3 * 2) + (3 * 1)) packs, for a value of 48 tickets
- Wizards nets 64 tickets
Seems to me that phantom sealed is the exact opposite of "higher profit margin". Phantom pays Wizards less per player-hour than swiss draft. And all that really matters to Wizards is their take per player-hour.
That's misleading though - there's an equal chance that the top two are lands or the two under that are lands. So it has just as much chance of making your next two draws be land late game.
Actually what you wrote is the misleading thing. You were going to draw those two lands after your next two cards anyway, so Write into Being doesn't make you draw them when you weren't going to already. It does get you through those 2 land cards much faster (up to two turns faster than you would have otherwise). Write into Being is all upside even in the situation you describe: it gets at least one of the top two cards in your deck onto the board faster than it would have otherwise, it possibly scrys away one of the top two cards that you didn't want to draw, and it gets you to the cards that are on the other side of those two lands that were 3rd and 4th from the top up to two turns faster than you would have otherwise.
I tried, I really did. But the unbelievable crumminess of the magic online V4 client (whose game replay is buggy enough to not even propery show certain games - one game it showed me cast a Savage Punch on an Icefeather Aven, turning it into a 550/550 monstrosity (what kind of bug does that?) and attacking for super lethal damage - it actually showed the game end on a turn it didn't end on with a nonsensical effect that didn't happen) combined with the crummy tools that are freely available for video capturing and editing on Windows, meant that the whole thing was just a multi-hour exercise in futility. Sorry.
Too bad I couldn't capture them too, because they show me beating:
While I was down to 2 life and my opponent had 24, and I had no flyers on the board. (Next turn I used Azban Charm on the Butcher, then waited for their attack and unmorphed Icefeather Aven, eliminating the Wingmate token and chump blocking the Wingmate, oh yeah and drawing me a card, and next turn unmorphing a Abomination of Gudul, drawing me another card and providing the remaining flying blocker. After that, it was all inevitability and I won on 1 life.)
They also show me beating:
Duneblast while I had 5 creatures on the board, destroying all of mine and leaving I-can't-remember-what on their side. But unmorphing a creature in response, combine with the 5 cards I had in hand, allowed me to get back into it and win that one too.
And I also beat Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker - it lived for like 8 turns, hit me for maybe 12 damage, and killed two of my guys, but my unmorphed 4/5 creatures and 0/5 flying walls provided enough defense to allow me to once again draw card advantage with Secret Plans to win the game.
Honestly I've had maybe 5 epic comebacks on the back of the morph enhancement enchantments. They've been so solid for me.
All that being said, very fast decks can give you fits, but then, very fast decks give everything fits. You do have the advantage of having lots of morphs so at least you can constantly be throwing 2/2 (and if you're lucky, 2/3) blockers in the way, which can help extend the game, and get you into your card advantage engine.
1
You just said it yourself. Your deck will win 7 out of 10 matches. So your "putting in the effort to hone strategy" does pay off. It just doesn't win you every match, nor should it.
1
How so? Phantom at least seems like a lower profit margin to me. Profit margin of phantom sealed:
- Each phantom point costs 3/5 of a ticket to buy from Wizards (you put in 10 tickets and you get the equivalent of 6 phantom points)
- Wizards collects 80 tickets entry fee
- Wizards pays out 16 + (3 * 8) + (3 * 4) + 2 phantom points, for a total of 54 phantom points, worth the equivalent of 32.4 tickets
- Wizards nets 47.6 tickets
Compare to swiss draft, which is similar in terms of player time spent in the event:
- Wizards collects 112 tickets entry fees
- Wizards pays out (3 + (3 * 2) + (3 * 1)) packs, for a value of 48 tickets
- Wizards nets 64 tickets
Seems to me that phantom sealed is the exact opposite of "higher profit margin". Phantom pays Wizards less per player-hour than swiss draft. And all that really matters to Wizards is their take per player-hour.
1
Actually what you wrote is the misleading thing. You were going to draw those two lands after your next two cards anyway, so Write into Being doesn't make you draw them when you weren't going to already. It does get you through those 2 land cards much faster (up to two turns faster than you would have otherwise). Write into Being is all upside even in the situation you describe: it gets at least one of the top two cards in your deck onto the board faster than it would have otherwise, it possibly scrys away one of the top two cards that you didn't want to draw, and it gets you to the cards that are on the other side of those two lands that were 3rd and 4th from the top up to two turns faster than you would have otherwise.
1
Too bad I couldn't capture them too, because they show me beating:
Butcher of the Horde
Wingmate Rock
(i.e. 11 flying power on the board)
While I was down to 2 life and my opponent had 24, and I had no flyers on the board. (Next turn I used Azban Charm on the Butcher, then waited for their attack and unmorphed Icefeather Aven, eliminating the Wingmate token and chump blocking the Wingmate, oh yeah and drawing me a card, and next turn unmorphing a Abomination of Gudul, drawing me another card and providing the remaining flying blocker. After that, it was all inevitability and I won on 1 life.)
They also show me beating:
Duneblast while I had 5 creatures on the board, destroying all of mine and leaving I-can't-remember-what on their side. But unmorphing a creature in response, combine with the 5 cards I had in hand, allowed me to get back into it and win that one too.
And I also beat Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker - it lived for like 8 turns, hit me for maybe 12 damage, and killed two of my guys, but my unmorphed 4/5 creatures and 0/5 flying walls provided enough defense to allow me to once again draw card advantage with Secret Plans to win the game.
Honestly I've had maybe 5 epic comebacks on the back of the morph enhancement enchantments. They've been so solid for me.
All that being said, very fast decks can give you fits, but then, very fast decks give everything fits. You do have the advantage of having lots of morphs so at least you can constantly be throwing 2/2 (and if you're lucky, 2/3) blockers in the way, which can help extend the game, and get you into your card advantage engine.