In General: Magic Online BS

Hello and welcome back to In General. On Sunday's here at TGZ, I take over to talk about anything an everything relating to Magic the Gathering. This week I am taking a page out of somebody else's playbook. Actually, the same page out of a few different books.

I have mentioned on the blog before that I am a fan of Matt Sperling's article series, "Sperling's Sick of It." These are short text articles that discuss current events and how they have gotten underneath the author's skin. You can check out some of his stuff HERE.

This isn't a new or unique concept. Many other internet content creators that I follow have been using this idea for years. Ex: Brady Haran's "Paper Cut", Cinemassacre's "You Know What's Bullshit". In the old days this was just called an editorial. You submitted an article to your local print media publication that detailed your opinion on a subject. Mostly vapid nonsense, zero objective information or critical value, but often amusing.

Today I am going to reappropriate this idea for my own purposes (as if I haven't ever done this before). Here are a few things about Magic Online that I think are BS:

You Can't Build Your Own Cube

Simply put: why not? When the new MTGO client released I was absolutely sure that this feature was going to be a part of it. It is in such high demand that Magic redditors are practically beating down Wizard's door. Why can we not draft from our own cards? Why can we not make our own Cube to play with our friends? Why are you still forcing us to play the Magic Online Cube/Legacy Cube/Holiday Cube on your schedule? We should definitely be able to do that whenever we want by now. What harm could this possibly do?

Multiplayer Still Sucks

It kind of sucks in real life too, but it is much worse online. If you have tried to play Commander online lately, you will know what I am talking about. It is a painful experience that feels like it takes a decade just to finish a game. Most of the time you won't even get to finish one because players will just leave the game when they get board or when they have to go to work on Monday morning. It takes that long. We take for granted all of the little shortcuts that we get to use in real life. Sure shuffling is a pain, but it doesn't matter how long you shuffle if someone can just go ahead and take their turn while you do it.

There is also the issue of matchmaking. It is pretty tough to even get enough players to start a game. People are so repulsed by the experience that they don't even want to play multiplayer on MTGO.

Final thought: why is there not support for other multiplayer formats like Emperor, Star, Windmill, etc.?

In Fact...

Why can't you just make your own format on MTGO? Instead of waiting around for the platform's developer to add support for things like Tiny Leaders or Winston Draft, why doesn't Wizards just make the whole thing open source and let the community add the features they want. At the very least there could be an editing tool that let's you create custom parameters for a match. And I mean one that isn't terrible.

Card Availability

Not every card in the game is actually available on MTGO. Vintage Masters was a huge step towards fixing this problem, but it didn't get all the way there. The example that is bothering me the most right now is Custodi Squire from Conspiracy. This card would be super sweet in Pauper and I would like to play with it. Thanks.











No Voice Chat

I play a lot of games on Steam. Like many people I greatly enjoy the ability to use Valve's voice-over-ip servers free of charge. The ability to use live voice chat in games would really enhance the user experience. It would make it easier to playtest certain decks or formats. It would let you have a conversation with your friends while you play.

Now I understand that there would be some concerns about the vulgarity of language and abuse. I don't want MTGO turning into a Call of Duty match. But there is already a system in place to report your opponent for poor behavior or sportsmanship. Also, and this is the best part, you can just turn it off if you don't want to interact with your opponents. How hard is that?

Double points if they can get the MTGO client to include both voice chat and video chat. How cool would it be to be Skyping your mates and playing a game of Magic with them all in the same client? Pretty dang cool.

Well I am glad that I got that off my chest. Sometimes it just feels good to complain a bit, you know? It also feels great to ask rhetorical questions to an internet word processing suite. Life is good. I'll be back early this coming week as we begin full coverage of the new set, Dragons of Tarkir! See you then, Zoners!

-GG

In General: MTG Economics Part 1: The Primary Price

Hello and welcome back to In General. On Sunday's here at TGZ we talk about anything and everything related to Magic the Gathering. Today, I am beginning a four-part opinion/educational piece on the economics of MtG, starting with everyone's favorite scapegoat: MtGO.

You can ask anyone in town, they will all have a few complaints about Magic Online. Specifically, I am going to pick out something that has been bothering me since the very beginning of online play: the cost structure.

Market Control

If you want to purchase a physical MtG sealed product, they are pretty expensive. There are certainly costs to creating and producing the game, but those are relatively small. Primarily, what drives up the cost of Magic cards is demand. While Wizards works to make the game appealing and grow the player base, the demand for cards is largely outside of the company's control. Some sets sell better than other. The reason for this is the strength of the product and people's interest in it.

Things are a little bit different when it comes to Magic Online. The costs of maintaining the program and providing support, etc., are still definitely there, so it could never be free, but there is no scarcity. A mint condition Black Lotus is expensive because only a handful still exist and thousands of people want one. Black Lotus is expensive on MTGO because Wizards has decided it will be that way.

By restricting the supply of new electronic cards 'produced' they keep the price of electronic boosters and other sealed product high, which they can then continue to sell for 99% PROFIT.

I fully endorse Wizard's right to run a profitable business and make money by entertaining people. That is their right as a corporation. But make no mistake, there is no real correlation between the price of an electronic booster pack and a physical one.

They don't require the same materials, don't trade in the same market, and don't suffer the same economic constraints, so why are they the same price? Actually, electronic boosters are usually more expensive from the Wizards online store than they are in real life. Tying these prices together is a convenient way for consumers to visualize and accept the costs, but in actuality this represents a clever price fixing scheme by Wizards.

Consumer Protection

When you provide a product to consumers, you should be required to disclose the extent to which you a Market Maker in that particular product and what your Compensation, if any, is for facilitating that transaction.

A market maker is any entity that has a way to control the supply, and thus the price, of a product. If you are a dealer with an inventory position, you are a market maker, provided you have at least a small percentage of the market under your control.

Compensation is pretty straightforward. I am not saying that every dealer needs to provide a full income statement and balance sheet with every candy bar they sell, but interested consumers should be given the opportunity to scrutinize such information at their request, if only in the interest of consumer protection.

Savvy readers may have picked up the language and rules that I am referencing. This is securities law. In the United States, nationally traded securities are regulated by the Securities Exchange Commission, which utilizes these rules for enforcing proper disclosure of material facts to consumers BEFORE THEY BUY.

Servicing vs. Profiteering

I am an adamant supporter of consumer protection. Not necessarily consumer protection LAWS, which are often politically motivated and have only modest effectiveness, but rather responsible business practices.

If a man was dying of thirst in the desert you would give him some water, right? Well, if you always did it for free, soon you would be out of water yourself because people would take advantage of your kindness, so you need to regulate the price somehow. You also don't want to charge extortionate prices because that will turn people away from you, shrink your market share, and most importantly: it won't serve your customer's needs.

I am arguing that, by pegging the price of online boosters to physical boosters AND artificially restricting the supply by only presenting limited public offerings, Wizards is behaving in an anti-consumer way. They are charging a fixed, theoretical maximum for a product which has a negligible marginal cost to produce. They hold a monopoly position, which is unavoidable because they created the game themselves and it is their intellectual property, but for those who are not inclined to an in-depth economic analysis, suffice to say that this situation usually ends poorly for the consumer.

Charging the highest prices that you can while optimizing sales is a typical indicator of a profiteering business model. A servicing business model is one in which you voluntarily charge lower prices to build up loyalty, trust, and social equity with your customers.

At the beginning I promised that this would be an opinion piece, so in case you don't think that you have gotten your money's worth, here is my final opinion on this subject: Companies, particularly someone like a toy manufacturer who brings so much joy into the world, should use a servicing model for pricing their products, NOT a profiteering model.

Join me next week Zoners, when I discuss why Magic isn't a great investment. Oh joy!

-GG

In General: Thoughts on the New MtGO

Hello and welcome to In General. I am your host Grandpa Growth. In General deals with broader topics, just about anything at all relating to Magic the Gathering. Today I am going to share some of my thoughts on the new MtGO client.

I realize this was a hot topic about a month ago, so some might consider me late to the party. I intentionally stopped using modo for a couple weeks prior to the update and didn't start picking it back up again until very recently. So if you have been wondering where Ill-Gotten Games has gone it will be back soon! An entirely new season with Commander gameplay, drafts, Momir Basic, and Pauper for sure. If you have a format or deck that you want me to play, make sure to let me know.

I talked last week about how I am a late adopter of new technology. In this case, it was for a good reason. I tend not to buy new games or download new software right when it comes out because there are bound to be issues with launching any new product. Luckily, the new MtGO client only had some minor hiccups. Wizards didn't even fumble the roll out! This flashy new edition is surely an upgrade and does actually fix a lot of the problems that existed in the previous iteration of Magic Online. That being said, it isn't without its problems. Let's go through some of the outstanding issues.

1. Performance and Latency

I was sincerely hoping that the new client would feature a substantial increase in performance. Now I know that for some people, they never experienced any issues, even with the previous version. However, I know that for the majority of users, MtGO was just what happened between the crashes. The program itself was not optimized very well, it monopolized much more of your computer's hardware power than was really necessary. This lead to slow performance, frequent lag, and disconnections. We all remember the more recent server crashes that sent a premier events the way of the dodo.

It was my hope, and the hope of the game's development team, that the new client would directly address these issues and solve them outright. As far as the tournament cues, the issues seem to be mostly resolved. However, even in the casual rooms, the time it takes for the client to register the click of a mouse is uncomfortably high. If my pc can handle high frame rates for modern shooters, MtGO should look and feel seamless at all points.

2. Classifieds and Trade Screens

The only thing that has changed about the trade screens is the look. Pure aesthetics. I don't know how long you have spent trolling through the dregs of the bot farms, but I was really hoping it would get simplified. Nowadays, you can just input what format you want to play, what deck you want to use, and poof! The client magically hooks you up with the first available person who also wants to play that format. This change had been a long time coming, and frankly should have been introduced years. But why can't it be that way for trades?

There are already good models for what this software looks like. Have you ever bought something online? Amazon, Autotrader, Channelfireball, they all have a more advanced search and matching feature. If I want to buy a Daze, why can't I just search Daze and have the classified page send me back every user in the trade room at that moment who has at least one copy of that card available for trade. Further refinements could include: only people trading play sets, sorting by prices, or a variety of other factors. Why do we not have this?

3. Deckbuilding Screens

Much has been made of how the collection screens have been reorganized and there are claims that the whole system is more responsive and moves much faster. I have experienced a noticeable increase in the performance of the client on these screens, at least when compared to older versions. My complaint about this is the exact opposite of number two above. The advances in form have not followed those of the function.

They changed the nuts and bolts. They changed the buttons, and the functions, and the flow of how you work through the system. The WAY that you build and organize your decks has changed fundamentally. The process has been streamlined.

However, it LOOKS almost exactly the same. The subscreens where you assemble your deck, sideboard, and when you are browsing through you collection are nearly identical. The screens are still far too small. You can rarely work with your entire deck. You need to scroll side-to-side or shrink down the other windows in order to manipulate and see your entire deck at once. In fact, this new version of modo has even more little windows clogging up the screen. This was already a problem before and I felt we rightly deserved a solution. Instead, we got punished. The good Worth Wollpert giveth...and taketh away.

Well, that's all for today. Thankfully. What are your thoughts on the new MtGO? Is it better, worse, or somewhere in the middle? Leave your comments below and let us know what you think. As promised IGG will return soon and, as always, I will be back next week with another In General.

-GG

In General: The Value of Vintage Masters

Hello and welcome back to another In General. The column where we discuss just about anything really. Long time followers of the blog will know that I rarely touch upon the subject of finance. I find price speculation and arbitrage to be a sordid business. In most cases I would rather not mix business with pleasure.

However, my interest has been piqued by the new Vintage Masters product. I, like many others, am thrilled to get the chance to play with Vintage-Legal cards on MtGO. At the time of this writing I haven't yet drafted the set, but I hear the format is a blast; a true paradise for drafters who favor high synergy decks. The only thing I am not excited about is the price tag.

Like its predecessor Modern Masters, Vintage Masters boosters carry a higher price tag. Historically, speaking, opening booster packs has never resulted in higher expected value than simply leaving it in the package. Very few sets contain a high enough density of chase cards to incentivize people to open boxes en masse, ex. Zendikar/Worldwake. When this occurs, the price of those chase cards comes down quickly as the market becomes saturated, ex. Shocklands in Return to Ravnica Block.

There are examples of high-value cards from box sets that drive the sale value of the product up, ex. True Name Nemesis in Commander 2013. This is due almost entirely to the limited supply of the product that has been manufactured, ex. From the Vault series. With an online-only release, supply cannot be a limiting factor. You can open virtual booster packs for days and they will never run out as long as you keep buying. They limit the supply artificially by only offering the chance to buy or draft the product for a limited amount of time, occasionally allowing second and third chances in the form of 'throwback drafts'.

So how does VMA compare? Is it worth it to crack them open? What is the expected value from a pack? I am setting out to answer that question. I have compiled a chart of all the cards of Rare and higher rarity. Using some information about the density of rarities provided by Wizards: Here and here. I am going to attempt to compute the average ticket value of an opened pack of VMA. Below is the chart. Followed by the answers to a few questions I know people will have.

Card Name	Value (tix)
Ancestral Recall	113		Total EV per pack:
Black Lotus	200		3.232140985
Mox Emerald	82
Mox Jet	82		Base odds: 1/53
Mox Pearl	82
Mox Ruby	86
Mox Sapphire	115
Time Walk	78		Avg
Time Twister	25		95.88888889
Armageddon	1
Balance	1		Expected value per pack:
Bazaar of Baghdad	6		1.809224319
Channel	0.5
City in a Bottle	0.5		Base odds: 1/8
Coercive Portal	0.5
Dack Fayden	4
Demonic Tutor	2		Avg
Eureka	0.5		2.833333333
Fastbond	1
Jace TMS	12
Library of Alexandria	2		EV per pack:
Lion's Eye Diamond	20		0.354166667
Mana Crypt	5
Mana Drain	11
Marchesa, the Black Rose	0.5
Memory Jar	0.5
Mishra's Workshop	6
Morphling	0.5
Muzzio, Visionary Architect	0.5
Oath of Druids	3
Scourge of the Throne	0.5
Skullclamp	0.5
Sol ring	1
Time Vault	1
Tolarian Academy	1
Upheaval	0.5
Wheel of Fortune	1
Yawgmoth's bargain	0.5
Yawgmoth's will	1
academy elite	0.25
acncient tomb	2.25		Base odds 7/8
ankh of mishra	0.25
badlands	3		AVG
baleful force	0.25		1.221428571
baleful strix	0.5
basandra, battle seraph	0.25
bayou	4		EV per pack:
beserk	0.25		1.06875
brago, king eternal	0.25
burning of xinye	0.25
burning wish	1
chaos warp	1
clickslither	0.25
control magic	0.25
council's judgment	0.5
crater hellion	0.25
crescnedo of war	0.25
crovax the cursed	0.25
cruel bargain	0.25
cursed scroll	0.25
dack's duplicate	1
decree of justice	0.25
derganged hermit	0.25
drakestown forgotten	0.25
edric, spymaster of trest	1
ephemeron	0.25
eternal dragon	0.5
flowstone sculpture	0.25
flusterstorm	1.5
force of will	24
future sight	0.25
gamble	1
genesis	0.25
gerard's battle cry	0.25
gigapede	0.25
goblin lackey	0.25
goblin piledriver	0.25
grand coliseum	0.25
grenzo, dungeon warden	1
hermit druid
ichorid	1
jareth, leonin titan	0.25
karmic guide	2
karn, silver golem	0.25
keldon necropolis	0.25
kjeldoran outpost	0.25
kongming, sleeping dragon	0.25
lake of the dead	0.25
laquatus's champion	0.25
lightning dragon	0.25
living death	1
magister of worth	0.25
mana vault	0.5
masticore	0.25
mind's desire	0.25
nature's ruin	0.25
necropotence	0.25
nevinyrral's disk	0.25
norwood priestess	0.25
null rod	0.5
palinchron	0.25
parallax wave	0.25
plateau	2
plea for power	0.25
pedator, flagship	0.25
realm seekers	0.25
recurring nightmare	1
regrowth	0.5
reign of the pit	0.25
ring of gix	0.25
rofellos, llanowar emissary	1
rorix bladewing	0.25
saproling burst	0.25
savannah	3
scrubland	3
sea drake	0.25
selvala explorer returned	0.25
shivan wurm	0.25
silvos, rogue elemental	0.25
smokestack	1
sphere of resistance	2
spirit cairn	0.25
spirit mirror	0.25
spiritmonger	0.25
starstorm	0.25
strip mine	1
stroke of genius	0.25
sulfuric vortex	0.5
survival of the fittest	2
sylvan library	2
taiga	3
thawing glaciers	0.5
tradewind rider	0.25
tropical island	6
tundra	10
underground sea	12
vampiric tutor	2
visara the dreadful	0.25
volcanic island	12
volrath's shapeshifter	0.25
winds of wrath	0.25
woldgorger dragon	0.25
yavimaya hollow	0.25
zhalfirin crusader	0.25

FAQ:

"What about foils?" - I didn't have a sufficient body of reliable information to base the price of foils on. They are valuable, and do add to the EV of opening a pack, but I couldn't state that additional value quantitatively at the time of this writing.

"What about Commons, Uncommons, or card X?" - There are certainly some Commons and Uncommons that carry value. The problem is that they tend to lose that value very quickly as more booster packs are opened. This is an ASSUMPTION of my research method: As time goes on, the total EV of the C/U cards in a VMA pack will approach zero. The same can be true of any individual card that carries value. Classical economics clearly explains that each pack of VMA opened will marginally decrease the value of all copies of card X.

"Where did you get your numbers?" - Searching through the classified section on MtGO. Looking specifically for BOTS buying individual copies of the card in question. Not the value from wholesale bots or human buyers. This 'data' is only as reliable as you believe it to be. It was true at the time it was collected, but not necessarily true for the future. Also: I am only one person, looking at a small number of classified listings, this is not a representative sample. For many cards, I did some rounding. For many other cards that are not sought after, finding an exact value wasn't possible. So, for cards that basically have no value I set a minimum price floor. Mythics are valued at 0.5, Rares at 0.25.

"Your math is wrong because reasons." - You must phrase your answer in the form of a question. Also, yes. My math is wrong. It is simplified. Potentially over-simplified. I don't have all the information I would need to make it 100% accurate. That information could potentially be available or become available though. If you have seen a better predictive model elsewhere, please share in the comments.

"Can I get a blank copy of this spreadsheet to use on any set?" - No. Go make it yourself ya mooch.

"Are you a certified expert in any of the following fields....?" - No. I mean probably not.

"Are you a wizard, Harry?" - Brilliant, Hermione.

Ill-Gotten Games: Theros Block Draft #1

Hello Zoners! This week on Ill-Gotten games we have a special treat. Grandpa's first Theros Block Draft on MtGO. Will there be laughs? Will there be "learning moments"? Only one way to find out.

Ill-Gotten Games: Pauper Mono Black #2

Zoners! Your weekly dose of Ill-Gotten games is here! Today we are playing more Pauper with the same deck from last week. Why so much Pauper? Well, it is my favorite deck in one of my favorite formats. Also: don't ask so many questions. Next week we will have something completely different. Enjoy the vids!

TGZ News: GPSAC, MTGO Cube, and Born of the Gods

Hey Zoners! Grandpa Growth here bringing you what is up in the world of Magic in another TGZ News!

GP Sacremento finished up last weekend and it was definitely an exciting tournament. The live coverage by members of Team ChannelFireball was awesome and their very own Tom Martell ended up taking down the whole tournament. If you missed out you should definitely check out the text coverage on the mothership and the video of the Top 8 Draft on Channelfireball.com:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpsac14/welcome
http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/grand-prix-sacramento-top-8/

Exciting news for casual fans, MTGO Cube will return January 29th! Announced this week on Daily MtG complete with an updated Cube list. Make sure to set aside some time next week to crack virtual packs and have some good old fashioned fun.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/01202014

Born of the Gods spoilers are all over the internet making waving and lighting up Twitter feeds from here to Hong Kong. Whether you are testing modern for the upcoming Pro Tour or just trying to get a leg up at your local prerelease make sure you check out the full visual spoiler. At the time of this post nearly the entire set has been spoiled!
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/bornofthegods/cig#