Missing

So, I’m missing a deck. One of my best decks too. Hopefully, it is just the chaos of packing.

Update: After returning from the house hunting trip, the deck finally turned up!

Tournaments in Elko?

According to the employees at 5J Music, there will be some sanctioned DCI tournaments at 5J music soon. They began today by playing a no-fee somewhat informal tournament but anticipate charging around $4 for a once a month DCI sanctioned event. There is also some talk about having a casual FNM as well. I think it is nice that there will be some structured and organized MTG play in Elko.

While I was in 5J, I noticed they were selling a lot of Magic related items as well as roleplaying paraphenalia. 5J does not sell singles.

Magic players were sitting at a table intensely playing a match while I was there. As this was one of the first events, I imagine there will be more participants as word of the events gets around. I had not heard of the event at all until this morning and by then I was already playing Magic with my friends. Of course, as I am in the process of moving, I may not be able to actually participate in any of the tournaments before I leave, but it is still nice to see the Magic scene in Elko bolstered.

Who gives a fuck?

Apparently no one. 

The grossest inequalities in parities are now just business as usual in gaming. 

In Magic, people have hidden behind bizarre supply and demand formulas to pretend that the card prices are somehow legitimate.  The truth is, the MTG merchants are now simply selling power- not art, not rarities, but power.  The power to win a match.  The players themselves seem absolutely incapable of moderating their own behavior.  In MTGO, I constantly see people buying the win.  I can’t imagine why or how that would be fun to play, but apparently these players get something out of outspending their opponent.

I’ve said before:

“The gaming companies are exploiting many of the worst individual instincts. Unlike the mostly cooperative PVE environments of roleplaying or single player video games of my youth, the new multiplayer environments encourage win-at-all cost approaches which tempt people with premium-cost advantages.”

Ben Cousins, former General Manager of EAsy, gave a presentation on “Paying to to win.”  Ben Cousin’s warning was clear:

“Be careful, the loser MUST NOT know they have lost because of the use of an item.”  

Unfortunately, many cards in Magic make that point all too clear. 

It’s not limited to just pen and paper games.  The fact that rent-a-cheat is still operating months after being reported as a cheat site only confirms that some game players and companies do not give a fuck about the gaming environment.  Both Blizzard and Electronic Arts had a chance to shut down the site- and of course- players themselves could stop buying pay to win cheat software.  None of this has happened. 

While I take some small satisfaction in the profit crippling effects that are a result of the tolerance of these conditions, I know too many innocent players are being exploited and hurt by these gaming conditions. 

Time to Move

I am moving. Unfortunately, this means no more Saturday morning Magic or hosting Monday Magic events soon. I have already cancelled the Magic Monday events at my house because the boxes make the house too chaotic- even for Magic players. It sounds like the events may continue with a new host. It was really fun playing Magic for the last year with the group in Elko and hopefully I will be able to find new players when I relocate. I’ve done some research about my new destination and it looks like there are plenty of LGS in the city. If not, my budget magic approach at least means I won’t have overspent on building my collection.

Either/Or

A friend of mine asked me why I care if a card is 15 or 20 cents cheaper at one seller versus another. I understand it looks cheap, but one has to consider the number of cards I purchase. With a collection of over 4000 cards, a 20 cent per card increase would be roughly $800 in additional cost to me.

The amount of leisure money I have to spend is fairly fixed- the only question is how that money gets spent. It’s an either/or proposition. I either spend the money just on cards or I spend the money on cards and something else. The higher the cost of cards, the less I have to invest in other goods and services which enhance my experience and the experience of others. The money I save on singles is money I can spend on other things- like playmats, dice, life counters, and entering tournaments.

This does not mean I will always end up paying the lowest price, but I will be price conscious about my purchases.

Money on the table

Like most players, I am keeping an eye on the new cards being released in AVR. On my short list, I have about $20 worth of cards that I am interested in and can afford. The list will probably change as prices and supplies will change. Earlier adopters usually pay a premium, so I’ll probably wait a while before picking up any AVR cards.

Some of the singles are already extremely overpriced. It is unlikely I will ever own many of those cards because I do not consider any card that is priced over $1. As I’ve said before, my goal is to spend no more than 25 cents on average.

The irony of the situation is that I might spend more money if the prices were lower. Putting aside my personal suspicion that WOTC could easily profit at 3 cents a card, if every card sold for a generous 5 cents a single, a full set of four of each new set would cost about $48.80. I think players would much rather own a full set of AVR at $48.80 than just the cards they could afford. New players would not fear the investment curve. Established players could budget for expansions. In addition to that, with more players owning deeper collections, deck construction and skill of play would again be integral to the game. No one could say they were outspent but not outplayed.

As it stands, I’ll probably end up spending less than $20 on AVR cards.

Meanwhile, the out with the old and in with the new tradition will probably continue. Many of my older cards are obsolete owing to power creep. Dwarven Warriors is now obsolete thanks to Goblin Tunnelers. When Dwarven Warriors was in its prime, I acquired 21 of them. With power creep, it is unlikely that I will purchase more than eight of any card. I suspect I will probably just have to replace the card later with the newer and better version. A more recent example would be my preference for Dissipate over Cancel.

A few older cards still remain better than their newer counterparts. Counterspell is better than Cancel. Aspect of Wolf is a closer call, but I feel the lower casting cost makes it better than Blanchwood Armor.

Nevertheless, as thirteen is the new six, many older cards will end up like Dwarven Warriors- obsolete. The one upside is that this will reduce demand for many cards as people like myself will not want to have too many extra cards as they will anticipate replacing them. Investors should find power creep unappealing as their investments will be more uncertain. I am a player, so I am not really interested in the plight of speculators and investors (just as they do not seem to care about the plight of players).

It is not clear why collectors have not simply moved on to collecting prints rather than cards. Prints and playmats provide better artistic representations of the work. Likewise, with all of the cards viewable online for free at Gatherer, I’m not sure how much card ownership means to art enthusiasts.

I do know what all of this means to me. The pricing trends for players means that I will be spending less on Magic.

r/mtgtcg

I’ve been spending some time on Reddit, specifically r/mtgtcg subreddit. I feel it is an interesting way to keep on top of things that are happening in Magic: The Gathering.

This morning, I watched Alex “Drummo” work on a mock up of an unofficial community inspired image via his livestream thanks to the post on Reddit. It’s nice watching an artist work to give one a feel for the energy that gets put into an image.

Official art and spoilers also make regular appearances on the subreddit. Overall, it seems like a good subreddit for keeping up on things in the Magic community.

I also feel that r/mtgtcg comes forward with some helpful tips on deck construction as well. My current MTGO deck includes the Knowledge Pool/Curse of Exhaustion combination (in general play Curse first) that I learned about on Reddit. The deck I constructed around the combination has gone 10-6 in the standard just for fun section of MTGO. This is considerably better than most of the budget MTGO decks I build. A drawback to this approach is deck fatigue- playing the same deck over and over again gets a bit boring at times.

I posted the deck at the end of the last thread, but I’ll post it again here:

Mainboard

3 Oblivion Ring
3 Elixir of Immortality
3 Suture Priest
3 Spirit Mantle
4 Serra Angel
4 Shattered Angel
28 Plains
3 Knowledge Pool
2 Chalice of Life
4 Fiend Hunter
3 Curse of Exhaustion
3 Leonin Relic-Warder

Sideboard

4 Alloy Myr
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Spirit Mantle
1 Suture Priest
1 War Report
1 Knowledge Pool
1 Creepy Doll
1 Curse of Exhaustion
4 Sunblast Angel

My blue deck looks like this:

4 Wing Splicer
4 Trepanation Blade
3 Æther Adept
4 Blighted Agent
1 Master Thief
4 Corrupted Conscience
2 Mana Leak
1 Æther Adept
4 Undead Alchemist
1 Ponder
1 Ponder
2 Mind Control
19 Island
4 Viral Drake
9 Island
3 Elixir of Immortality
2 Cancel

In a pay to win environment, these decks won’t do exceptionally well but they might come up with some surprising wins.

Second Chances: MTGO

I’m giving MTGO a second look. I had to start playing again to prep for SLC a few weeks ago. As a budget player, I found the environment unfriendly. Yesterday, I decided to give the “Planeswalker” format a try and it has been interesting.

The advantages of the format are that you can get to try out a lot of very cool (and expensive) cards for a very low price. The planeswalker expansion decks are only five dollars each. Right now there are 6 in total. In each box, you get incredible cards like Platinum Angel, Thrun the Last Troll, and a myriad of other really cool cards.

You cannot trade or sell the cards, so the deck packs are loaded with great cards at a really low price. It’s Magic without the speculative collector’s market. These cards can only be used for playing, but that is what I am most interested in doing.

Opening a deck full of these cards seems much more like buy an older deck box. While it’s not quite the all-encompassing offering Microprose offered, it is a fairly affordable offering compared to buying regular MTGO cards.

The cards are restricted in use.  You can only use them to build planeswalker decks.  The planeswalker format does not allow you to buy, sell, or trade the planeswalkers cards. You also cannot use the cards in any tournament events.

In fact, the only two areas where you can use the format are in the new players area and in two-headed giant. I am not sure why they restrict planeswalker duels to the new players area, as it seems to me a lot of people playing the decks are not new players.

Waiting for a chance to play a multiplayer game of Planeswalker can take a while. In fact, sometimes, the waiting is longer than the round.

While MTGO still remains far less social than real space Magic, the planeswalker format gives budget players a chance to try out some of the more expensive cards.

Of course, like most players, I am tired of rebuying the cards just to meet the requirements of yet another format. How many versions of Arrest should I really have to buy? In addition to that, the value is reduced by the inclusion of extra (e.g. more than 4) cards. Extra cards in the planeswalkers format really serves no purpose.

At this point, I still feel paper is a better overall experience.

If you are wondering what I am running as a budget standard MTGO deck (non-planeswalker) in the casual play just for fun section of MTGO, it is here:

3 Oblivion Ring
3 Elixir of Immortality
3 Suture Priest
3 Spirit Mantle
4 Serra Angel
4 Shattered Angel
28 Plains
3 Knowledge Pool
2 Chalice of Life
4 Fiend Hunter
3 Curse of Exhaustion
3 Leonin Relic-Warder

Sideboard
4 Alloy Myr
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Spirit Mantle
1 Suture Priest
1 War Report
1 Knowledge Pool
1 Creepy Doll
1 Curse of Exhaustion
4 Sunblast Angel

Saturday Morning Magic

In Elko, the group I play with usually plays on Saturday mornings.  It was a smaller group than usual, so we played some Planechase.  The group usually plays at the Starbucks near Smiths on Saturday morning.  The atmosphere and the play are casual.

 

 

 

 

Making Tokens

As I posted earlier, I am making my own tokens. I feel this is a fairly cost effective way to enhance the gaming environment. I can get the tokens printed in color on card stock at a cost of about 8 cents per card. After sleeving them in a penny sleeve, I can label the sleeve with a printed Avery-label style sticker to indicate power and toughness or flying.

I recently made a new Wolf Token, using Sculptris, a new Thopter Token with Sketchup/Irfranview/Makehuman, a new Saproling with Sculptris/Irfranview, a new “Fire” Angel Token with Sculptris/Makehuman/Gimp, and a new WurmcoilToken with Sculptris/Irfranview.

Here are my tokens so far:

As I explained in my other post:

“The process is fairly cheap. I used several free programs such as Blender, makehuman, irfranview, OpenDraw (from OpenOffice), Sculptris, and Gimp to make the token cards. (I’m using the artwork from my defunct Goetia project). I also have a fairly inexpensive program called Fragmotion which is also helpful for modifying the poses of my models and UVMapping. MagicSetEditor is helpful for creating a card border.”