#FF Blog - Follow Friday, Epic Draft and Who gotz da skillz?

Friday has arrived. I'm getting pretty pumped for the new set to shake up draft. Probably going to stick to standard until then. But, since the new set is coming up, #FF to @modogodot and @marshallLRCast if you seriously haven't checked out their cast yet, CHECK IT OUT FOR SET REVIEW. SERIOUSLY. They put hours upon hours into this and its extremely detailed. They gather all the relevant info, present all the interactions, make predictions, talk about what types of decks might like a card, etc.

#FollowFriday @semisober. This guy has really stepped it up over on his blog tommartell.com He's previously been posting his drafts, but now he's posting other peoples drafts, and commentating. Its great. He's also beginning to try and breakdown a framework of vocabulary for breaking down drafting decisions. This is going to get interesting real quick.

#followfriday @neiltyson This is one of the NOVA hosts from PBS. I love science documentaries, so this guy is basically my hero, but he always has clever things to say about current events related to science.

#followfriday @rogueinsight His blog is pretty sweet, he's always brewin up something sweet. He has an idea of running mindcrank with bloodchief ascension, and i want to build it so bad. My version would be grixis would tezzeret shell, lots of cantrip artifacts, jinxed idol, perilous myr, bloodghast, bolts, preordain... sounds fun. NOt sure if it will be good, but it will be fun.

#followfriday @dzimet He's a local Level 2 judge, and all around awesome dude. He was my teammate in the 3v3 kamigawa draft, and the two of us were undefeated. We crushed so badly even one of our teammates went home sick...

so at this point in the post, the author fell asleep... *sigh*.

So i'm going to just slam some more #ff's in here, and move on.
@two_eyes
@hobbesq
@samstod
@cardboardwitch
@kstube
@swordstoplow
@bgardnerdurbin
@josephlocascio
@mulldrifting
@kellyreid
@fatecreatr
@chosler88
@auranalchemist
@grant_champion
@cavemankellen
Also the usual caveat, of there being a bunch of people i follow, and nearly all of them are awesome.

Onward, and forward!
Last night I drafted Kamigawa block for the first time. Everyone talked about how weird the format was, and wow, they were right. I got a sick bomb in each pack (Yes, it was nice.) but I found it funny how the power level of some cards was so low, while others was so high. First Pack I opened the Mind Control Dragon, Keiga. Second pack, I obv opened a Jitte, and Third pack, I got an Undying Flames.  My first game, I resolved a Jitte, and my opponent immediately scooped. Second game I cast a turn 6 Keiga, Turn 7 Undying Flames, but just then, David Caruso popped in and said, "This draft is gonna be...." *Puts on his sunglasses* "Epic." YEEEEEEAAAAAHHH
Okay, well I won every game there after by simply casting Undying Flames, and blocking. Epic, to say the least.

"Who gotz da skillz?"
Yesterday a very interesting debate was brought up between @marshallLRcast and @auranalchemist. Their initial debate was about which deck was more skill intensive to play in standard between BUG/RUG and RDW. I mostly played devils advocate in this debate to anyone who said it was an obvious choice one way or the other, because to me, it isn't that obvious.

Some fun excerpts:

@cardboardwitch: "To answer your question in detail my reply: "Play both decks 100 times each and then come laugh with me at how dumb the question is" #truth"

 

and:

'Let's try a few more "Who's a better hockey player; Pavel Datsyuk or my cousin Dave?" how about "What tastes better shit or a ham sandwich?"'

 

Then, @modogodot, in his infinite wisdom, defined a deck's skill intensity as:

"A graph with two axis: "Pilot Skill Level" & "Expected Win % in Meta" would be an interesting way to define it for each deck"

 

And @mrfridays defined it as:

"Number of possible lines of play that aren't readily noticeable or represented by the current or future board states. Roughly."

 

So where do I weigh in on this? I'm leaning towards @modogodot's definition. But ultimately, now does this actually help us answer the question? It really depends on the actual pilots skill level, how skill intensive the deck is. I think a true beginner could play RDW about as well as a average-below average player. I think beyond that, the ability to play RDW well goes in tiers, in a staircase. While with BUG/RUG a true beginner might not be able to even play the deck at all, but with practice their skill with it would increase linearly until it is mastered. Another possible definition would be, "Which deck is more difficult to pilot flawlessly?" I'd say RDW.  But I want to try and illustrate what I'm getting at here, and why there is no cut and dry answer as everyone wants there to be. @marshallLRcast says i'm just trying to be cool by eschewing Bug/rug. But in all honestly, cast a jace. how hard is that? I kid.

 

My contention is that an argument can easily be made for either deck.

 

Arguments for RDW:

A really deep decision tree exists from RDW in which your first turn is going to affect all your possible decisions down the road. It involves planning multiple turns in advance while committing to one plan of action from turn 1.

 

Arguments against RDW:  Just burn and attack! according to marshall: "Just fucking attack"

 

I posed a sample starting hand for RDW and asked what the correct play would be. And while, I admit, this probably isn't even the trickiest decision tree to come up with, but the fact that I got different answers from people, just shows that its not as straightforward as it seems.

 

Opening hand:

Mountain

Fetchland

Goblin Guide

Spikeshot Elder

Geopede

Lightning Bolt

Searing Blaze

 

What would you do Turn 1 on the play against the mirror? I got a few different responses here, while I do agree with @mrfridays that his suggestion of Mountain->spikeshot is probably best, there certainly are  a lot of scenarios to play out in your head to arrive at that decision. If he's tested enough of the matchup where that is now engrained and intuitive, I can see why he snap-called that answer, but in reality, that decision tree goes pretty deep.

 

Arguments for BUG/RUG: Managing a Jace, Cobra and fetchlands is complicated! (i dont agree with this) Any deck with counterspells faces a whole new set of decisions as compared to a deck that doesn't, and the same can be said for a planeswalker that has 4 abilities, 3 of which can be used on nearly any turn. (This i do agree with)

 

Arguments against Bug/Rug: An opening hand that consists of Island Forest scalding tarn, preordain, jace, cobra and a titan has really only one line of play. Turn 2 cobra, turn 3 jace, turn 4 preordain, turn 5 titan.

Anything else is uncivilized. and the deck just plays itself. The cards themselves are so powerful that even misplaying this to play a turn 1 preordain, probably doesn't put you very far behind. I mean,  you have a jace! Jace on his own can be complicated to use correctly, but the bottom line is this deck can win THROUGH punts if you just draw like a champ. Burn spells and 1-2 drop creatures wont do that for you. You have to be focused on each play to maximize the value of every play you make to have a chance.

 

I'm kind of settling in to say that for someone at MY skill level, RDW is mroe skill intensive. I could pick up a RUG deck, take it to an FNM and do just fine. I pick up RDW and I'll likely be kicking myself for punts all weekend. While I might punt just as ofted with RUG, it's more forgiving because of the raw power of the deck. Also because all the real decisions that are hard, happen much later in the game when the board is developed, and you have more information about your opponents situation. I'm certainly in 100% agreement that a beginner is better off picking up RDW at a random tournament, because sometimes brute aggression can just get there, even if poorly played. And its true, its hard to misplay "just fucking attack" so once the creatures are in play, i think even a beginner can attack with them properly, but its setting up your line optimally from the start which is where i think they'll lose most of their games.

 

i'd really like to see what people have to say about this. its a very interesting concept to me. and if i didn't fall asleep writing this last night, i had planned to mock up some charts of this, but maybe another time.

 

Happy weekend, all... I hope its epic.

Pyromancer Update and MTGO=LifeTilt

So this past weekend I played in a WPN 1-invite Nat Qualifier at one of our local shops.
The event was very interesting to say the least.

Pros- Held at a sports bar to prepare for the (unneccessary) overflow.
Lunch was included at the sports bar in entry fee.
@dzimet was judge

Cons- Held at the store I dont normally play at, so had to pay cash ($25)
Only 36 (about) people signed up, which i believe is what made prize support so awful.

I played Pyromancer Ascension, as voted by you loyal blog readers, and I registered this:

4 Pyromancer Ascension

4 Preordain
4 See Beyond
4 Arc Trail
1 Call to Mind

2 Jace Beleren

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Burst Lightning
4 Spell Pierce
4 Into the Roil
2 Jace's Ingenuity

4 Halimar Depths
4 Scalding Tarn
8 Island
7 Mountains

Sideboard:
3 Conundrum Sphinx
3 Precursor Golem
3 Echo Mage
4 Spreading Seas
2 Spell Pierce

You can find @dtlerch's article about this here and my original write up on the deck.

R1 I played U/B infect, after a quick curb-stomping game 1, i boarded in all my creatures, as the opponent moaned about all the "dead cards" in his hand when he lost. Obviously this means I board in 9 creatures. He can't answer my turn 4 sphinx into turn 5 precursor golem, and that's that.

R2 I played a B/G Infect deck. He mulls to 6 and keeps, and says forest go. I go about my normal cantripping plan, as he land goes, eventually he missis some land drops and ends up discarding interesting cards like plague stinger, and vatmother. Hmmm. He finally gets double black mana and casts a Phyrexian Crusader, which I bounced some number of times before I comboed off and killed him. G2 I boarded in the creature plan, my opponent gets a turn 3 memoricide off a bird of paradise, and time walks himself when i have no pyromancers in my deck. I kill his bird, and he never plays another land.  I later on find out that this guys deck was bonkers, and I was his only loss in the swiss. *shrug* Mise?

R3 I played U/B control against a guy from our LGS. I lose a long grinding G1 that found me needing 1 burnspell off a draw 6 (copied ingenuity) I didn't find it, and lost G1 (this is the only g1 loss on the day). I bring in the creature plan, dodge another memoricide, and win via sphinx (which courtesy of 2x Halimar depths, drew me 3 cards). Game 3 we both mulligan to 6. I brought a mixture of creature plan with pyromancer, he was able to find a grave titan, and i wasn't able to answer it.

R4 I played Big Red, was a pretty straight forward curb stomp. I out raced his artifact ramp, and bounced his wurmcoils once he landed one. Also this opponent was telegraphing his Koth pretty clearly, which helped me win this one.

R5 I played against valakut. It was a kid from our LGS who is one of the best 12 year olds i've ever played. He usually plays pretty tight, but not quite perfect. i had the god draw g1. punted g2 and won game3. These games were all pretty straight forward, and were over by turn 6 or 7. .

R6 Intentional Draw to top8

Top8 R1, Paired with same U/B Control deck I lost to in the swiss. I won G1, and we both joked about how the sideboarding would go. Game 2 i mulliganed inot a pretty weak hand, but up a game i decided to keep, and gamble with it. Didn't pay off. Game 3 was a very tight game. There was one spot where I could have played differently, but not to sure how it would have panned out. It involved me kicking a into the roil to draw a card i knew was there from halimar depths, then using that burst drawn to kill another creature. Instead i went for the (potential) win, i gripped the burst, so i could untap, level my echo mage, burst and copy to win. He had the counterspell. (he boarded in flashfreezes, he actually ran no counters main)

So, my only losses were to the same deck twice... ruh roh. To be fair, he was running both duress and Inquizition of kozilek mainboard, which is really difficult for this deck to deal with. i was really happy with my play, there was only 2 major misplays I made, one cost me a game, the other didn't. My friend, as an observer, said he would have shuffled different cards away on a see beyond a couple times, but i still don't agree with him.

So, losing in the first round of top 8 was worth 4 (faction) booster packs. *sigh* I think this TO really could have done better here. I think they spent too much of their budget renting this area in the sports bar to provide too much prize support, and the free lunch for everyone probably cut into that too. The fact that only 36 people were there, means they could have just held it at their game tables at the store, and boosted the prize support a little. i would have gladly bought my own lunch. I really want to qualify for nats, and I know this deck has what it takes, but not sure I'm willing to drive up to LA to try again this weekend. There's a Standard PTQ in san diego just after NPH comes out, so i may wait till i get some more tools to really give this deck another shot. depends on how bored i get this weekend.

Onto the Rant. I hate MTGO. Yeah, that's Bold, Italic ANNNND underlined... I really hate it.
Before I start on this rant, I must say. I am not a slow player. I verrrrrrry rarely go to draws in paper magic, and when I do I take fault for not calling a judge on my opponent. I think the appropriate amount of time, and then I act quickly. Part of my play style is to keep the mental pressure on the opponent, by having my plays ready to go as soon as possible. Part of what makes this easy, is I can communicate verbally with my opponent while I execute the motions of what I'm doing. I really don't think that anyone who knows me would ever consider me to be, in any way, a slow player. And for the record, I also don't double queue on MTGO.

"So what's the problem with MTGO, Chad?"

Great question, hypothetical reader! Well, I dont know. But I really hate the 25 minute round timer, and on top of that, I hate the way the round timer operates in general. I've lost 3 consecutive drafts now to time outs, the only 3 i've played since the round timer has changed to 25 minutes.

Last night was the straw that broke the gamer's morale.

I drafted an INSANE U/W aggro deck in an 8-4 MSS draft. I smashed my R1 opponent in quick fashion, that involved all kinds of fliers smashing his face. Note: This was a 3 game match, and we were the first ones finished. It's not like I have a time issue in every match.
In R2, I mulligan to 5 G1, and keep 3 land, a Kemba and a Sunspear Shikari. I beat a few times, but never find an equipment, and get ground down to about 9 life once he finds some guys bigger than mine. I find a kemba's skyguard, and a mimic vat, and am using my vat to endlessly hold off his Hellkite Ignite (and gain 2 each time). He plays some other threats, but i'm able to neutralize all of them. All the while, just trying to dig for one of my 3 equipments to stick on my kemba, so i can actually attack and win this game. He kills the first equipment i find with a shatter, and ultimately I deck my opponent out while i'm at some absurd amount of life. This game went forever. Each turn he was clearly F6'ing and attackign with his dragon, and I would have to activate my vat, and f2 through the lifegain trigger, declare a blocker.  Keep in mind, I can't auto-yield the gain 2 life trigger, because each token the mimic vat makes is a "different" kemba skyguard and it doesn't recognize it as the same trigger. he was using about 5-10 seconds less than me each turn. The game ended with my 5 min on the clock to his 6, with me up a game. But basically, this is an unwinnable situation.
<aside>
 I recently listened to a Limited Resources Podcast on MTGcast.com where Ryan addressed some issues about timing out and said something like: "You should never be in a situtation where you might run out of time. Just make sure you always have more time than them." How exactly am I supposed to just make sure to have more time than them? Obviously, they aren't going to make that easy for me to do. That's assuming my reaction time and hand-eye coordination is equivalent to my opponents, and that we both are taking actions that should take the same amount of time during our priorities. For example, when I have to firebreathe a steel hellkite 6 times to win, that takes a significant amount of time off my clock. In paper magic, i just tap all my lands and say, "pump for 6". I can understand the strict time limits for Constructed, because you should know all the interactions of your deck, its easy to set up yields for your triggers, because you know them all, and most opponents decks are also known quantities. That being said, it is not unusual for a draft game in this format to go extremely long, where both players use up much of their clock. In such matches, the winner is in no way tied to who won G1, but who can more efficiently use their clock. This is extremely frustrating.
</aside>
 We go to game 2, i know i'm behind on clock, mulligan to a really good 6, that has 3 land, shikari, kemba and shield. I plop a kemba turn 3 (after F6ing aggressively up to this point), turn 4 shield her up, and attack (18) T5 make a token, cast shikari, and a strider harness, attack (16). Now my opponent casts a dragon, but im pretty sure i can just race it, i'm now under 3 minutes on my clock. I make a token, equip shikari, attack with sshikari and tokens, he blocks shikari (12) and move the harness back to kemba. I take 5 next turn from dragon. He also plays a wall. I make 2 tokens, swing in and connect for 4 (8) He plays another blocker, I make 2 tokens I alpha again, get him to 2. I obviously run out of time before my next attack.
He had no business winning this match. Period. i never punted, and I didn't play slow. I use my shortcut keys whenever possible, and i used auto-yields, for my mimic vat, kemba and glint hawk idol. People keep make suggestions to me, but these are all things I consider and they don't seem to make a difference.
Is MTGO seriously cutting me out of this game because my reaciton time is too slow? Because I like to build draft decks that have lots of interesting interactions? I love drafting, and I love that MTGo gives me an opportuity to do so at any hour of the night. I like drafting 8-4 so i can play with other people who take drafting seriously. But when I lose to a clock, in a match i would NEVER have lost in paper magic, I seriously want to die. Such a waste of money, and time. I know this is a ME problem, not an MTGO problem. The treatment is fair, in the sense, that it applies equally to both players. But, especially in draft, some decks are simply going to have more activated abilities, that need to be used to win the game. These necessitate mroe time off the clock for tapping mana, and activating abilities, and saying yes or no to may triggers. I'd probably say, in this case, that i was actually playing faster than my opponent, i just simply had more things i had to do (because my deck was simply way better).

I'm left not knowing what to do. I really want to be able to draft on MTGO, its great practice, its loads of fun, and I love drafting. But, do I just give up? Do I just say, welp, i guess my ring finger on my left hand isn't fast enough to F2 at the optimal interval to even be able to compete? While i understand the need to limit the time people take, this shortening of rounds to 25minutes seriously is affecting my desire to play MTGO. I understand they want to limit people who double queue, but this fix isn't working for me. that extra 5 minutes is really relevant to me, and MTGO is pretty likely to lose a customer in me.

I'm really open to ideas to how to speed up my play. Things I am already aware of are: Use F2 for "OK" Use F4 to pass till EOT unless opponent takes an action and F6 to pass turn except to declare attackers/blockers. I use these as aggressively as possible, sometimes to detriment by using the wrong button at the wrong time. This is a hand eye coordination issue, where my left hand just simply isn't as sharp as it needs to be. I also use auto-yields by right clicking on a activated/triggered ability on the stack, if its something i'll never need to respond to.

Today, its tilting me more than i'm used to. It's beyond frustrating, and i dont know what to do other than rant about it on my blog. So.... here ya go.

#FF Blog - Follow Friday, Spoilers, and Pick the Deck!

Happy Friday!

Sorry I couldn't post last week, I know many of you were in great dispair with out me. First, I have to give a shameless self plug, to check out my latest from Quietspeculation.com, its in the insider section, so sign up, and read it. Also lots of other great stuff on there, like @chosler88, and @mtgstephenmoss. The free section has some of my favorite twitter 'pals' like @cavemankellen and @bgardnerdurbin. So #FF all them peeps.

Also, always #ff to the Limited Resources Podcasters, @marshallLRcast and @modogodot. I really want to take a moment to pat Marshall on the back. He has attained the level of troll, that only I (and maybe @semisober) can appreciate. He trolls ever so subtly... jussssst enough to get you to nibble. I love when he rakes @smi77y through the coals... (not so much when I'm the recipient, but win-some-lose-some).

This week I asked some of my new-ish followers to introduce themselves, and both @mtgtroll (an employee of @card_kingdom) and @gamedoll said hello. I can already tell I'm going to enjoy @mtgtroll's humor, and @gamedoll is a chick from texas who is into MTG and swings a katana! she promised to post a picture when she gets a chance...

Also want to reccomend that everyone follows @two_eyes... He's an Econ student who's sharp and prepared to jump in on any give twitter topic. You'll find him in various forums around the interwebz as well.

Also a quick shoutout to the san diego peoples, @hobbesq, @josephlocascio, @gkstull and our own local Level 2 judge @dzimet who is just getting the hang of twitter (and doing so much more swiftly than he admits).

On a local note, some of the guys from my LGS started up a website/blog about commander at http://www.thecommandzone.com/ Check it out, they'll be posting videos of matches, among many other things there. I've been watching them work on things for quite a while over at the ol' gaming shop.

There's a bunch of people I highly reccomend following, and there's literally no one on the 250+ people I follow that I wouldn't reccomend. If i haven't gotten to you yet, remind me why you're awesome!

So, on to some chit-chat. Spoilers. Yeah, so leaked... godbook... lawsuit... whatever, drama. I have mixed emotions about the spoilers, and I've heard a lot of the same sentiment around the twitterverse. I really just feel bad for the smaller sites that depend on spoiler season to draw traffic to their sites. Boo. As much as I'm always clamoring for spoilers, i think WotC does a good job of doling them out responsibly, and this is quite literally, shooting the wad.

But now, the highlight of the day, Pick the Deck!
Tommorrow , i'll be playing in a WPN Nat Qualifier, that offers one bid to Nationals. I'm letting YOU pick the deck I play. Which ever deck receives the most votes, either here or on twitter, I'll run tomorrow.
Sorry, no Caw-Blade or Valakut here... you have to choose between my awful homebrews... MUAHAHA.

1- Pyromancer Ascension aka #JustPlayPA
I've written about this deck at length on this here blog, I'm taking @dtlerch's suggestion in removing treasure hunt in favor of 2x Jace Beleren and 1x Call to Mind. The Sideboard is TBD.

2-  Tezztructive Force aka #carbrew
This is a pretty standard Tezzeret Grixis deck, similar to what @thepchapin played in paris, but less lands, more artifact ramp, and destructive force. Game plan is to ramp with artifacts, armageddon, and win by making 5/5's or by jace-fatesealing off lands, or casting a wurmcoil of artifact mana. It's really fun, and REALLY swingy. Can simply win a game out of no where, but can totally fizzle with a board of mana artifacts...

3- MBC aka #getinthevat
This deck is a mono-black control deck, that revolves around abusing mimic vat, and tons of card advantage. Cards like Liliana's specter, (and liliana herself) phyrexian rager, skinrender, inquizition, massacre wurm and wurmcoil, all come together to produce medium sized bodies that no one wants to kill, because they can't survive them under the vat! Specter+vat lockouts, Skinrender+vat destruction, Massacre Wurm+vat hilarity!

To place your vote, do so in the comments below, or by tweeting at me with the corresponding hashtag.
Presuming the experience isn't a total nightmare, and more than 2-3 of you vote, i'll do a write up on the the tournament that i will guilt all of you into reading .

Goin to the padres game tonight, should be cool, don't be jelly.
Happy friday!

#FF Blog update with a splash of Legacy Drama

Happy Friday, all. Thanks for reading!

Not much exciting news on the twitter front for me, had a pretty busy week. Going to fire off the auto-includes: @marshallLRcast and @modogodot from Limited Resource Podcast over at MTGcast.com.
I will note that i got a new follower today, @EWDraftCast who is apparently a competitor to LR, i'll certainly check them out. (also on MTGcast.com) I dont expect them to eclipse LR, but maybe a good supplement to my weekly content consumption.

Also, a big #FF to @dtlerch and @chosler88, both QuietSpeculation.com writers {*cough* did you read my latest at QuietSpeculation Insider, yet?} They are also both headed to GP Dallas this weekend, and @dtlerch is running a slightly modified version of my Pyromancer brew. I know Corbin is/was considering it, but i think he went with a safer play (can't blame him). DO WORK! Thanks for the ManaScrewed plug, Corbin!

Other people I'm happy I follow:
@wrongwaygoback

@samstod

@kstube
@cavemankellen
@smi77y
@manadeprived
@steve032
@alawley
@two_eyes
@hobbesq
@thebrandondrury
@stillhadthese
@ejsetzer
@affinityforblue

there's more, but those are a bunch of them, some of which i hadn't shown any #ff love for awhile, so i hope you go follow any of them you aren't already. really good stuff, all around.

Today, I am going to briefly talk rant about the Legacy tirades going on all over the internet. First off, I don't play legacy. At all. Some will make the snap-judgement to say, "then what do you know or care about it?!?!" Well, I honestly think I'm in a good position to make some unbiased commentary, without any emotional attachment to whether the format grows or dies. That aside, I would play some legacy if there was more of it available in local tournaments and the cards were a bit more affordable. The Legacy tournaments that are currently available, overlap with a draft at our LGS, so it's easy for me to not feel too bad about it.

So, where to begin? I've trolled @joshjmtg a bit about his #savelegacy campaign, but at least I can understand why he feels the way he does, and why he's pushing for what he wants. He wants wizards to reprint staples, to bring prices down, and increase availability for cards. His reasoning, from what I understand, is that SCG will stop holding events for Legacy, if they aren't able to hold a stock to sell Legacy singles at the events, this would in turn create a crash in the Legacy market, and put Legacy back into the "fringe" areas of competetive play. I have two issues with his claims, but I'll only spend brief time on them, because at least he has a valid concern. First, WotC has no need to do this, they are already peaking with their current marketing strategy, and making changes to that may please some people, but there's simply no incentive for them to repring said staples. Some would argue that it helps sell existing sets, but they aren't exactly having a problem with that, lately. Same goes with From the Vaults, and other special offerings. Second, if SCG is holding huge cash tournaments every weekend, and the market can't withstand the demand for the cards, then it simply wasn't meant to be. Not that I'd be happy to see Legacy fade into the background again, but it's just the way it is. I applaud him for being passionate about something he feels strongly about, but really, there's no big deal here. It's not like Legacy didn't exist before, it still will be around, there will still be cash tournaments, just not as frequent.

I thought this would be the end of my tirade on Legacy, but sadly, no, I was unable to stay away from the shitstorm that occured earlier this week over on Mananation. I really hate to provide any incentive to drive more traffic to their site, as unwarranted bashing has turned into a marketing scheme, but you can find the article here. I commented extensively in the comments section, as did many others, but due to time constraints, i really wasn't able to give the topic my full attention, and per special request to @marshallLRcast I've decided to do my best to point out the serious flaws in this article.

I should start by saying, that Sean Morgan, the author of said article, is an educator with a Masters in a relevant field. Unfortunately (and not all that uncommon), he chose to hide his loosely veiled liable behind some actual (academic) economic terms. This caused some people to rally behind him, praising his wealth of knowledge. Meanwhile, Ben Bleiwiess, the subject of the article, chimed in to refute many of Seans claims. Which Ben did with perfect (n)ettiquette and did so in a very complete manner. Most of my feelings about the subject mirror Ben's. So again, I'll be brief on this, as my real axe to grind is an issue parallel to this.

1. Starcitygames.com (SCG) obtains no benefit from artificially raising the price on Legacy staples they do not have currently in stock. The common argument is that SCG is trying to corner the market by buying up all the cards, and capitalizing on inflated prices quickly before they drop again. This is near impossible. Not only do competing sites ALSO jack up their buy prices, but prices also climb on EBay and Local Gaming Stores(LGS) around the globe. SCG is not at any advantage to these other sites, as far as their ability to buy cards at higher prices goes. Second, raising the price as they buy, is only going to have a negligible effect on their profit per card. Buying a Force of Will for $30 to flip and sell for $50, makes the same profit as buying for $40 and selling for $60. If they had an absurd amount of units on hand already, then perhaps price-gouging could be claimed, but they don't. If they did, they wouldn't need to jack up their buy prices so quickly. In Ben's (paraphrased) words, "We bought 50 Force of Wills since last week, and now there's only 3 left." The cards are flying off their shelves, and they simply have to raise their buy prices to maintain a stock to offer their customers at their events.
2. There is a fixed quantity of Legacy staples in the marketplace, and as demand increases, there is an exponential effect on pricing, because the dealers are forced to increase buy prices simply to keep units in stock. Even if speculators are driving prices higher than actual demand (which is unprovable, and has a minor effect if any) the pricing will normalize to an equilibrium price. When buy prices go higher, people who once didn't want to sell their cards, may suddenly decide to do so. Eventually, there will be a flood of people dumping cards, and the price will come back down until there's a nice balance again. This is the way a competetive market works. There's no government regulation or interference in this market, and no 3rd parties driving market movement for derivative gains (mortgage market).

So, that's that. But why do i have a pinecone up my ass over his misrepresentation of the situation to his audience? Because he's attempting to use academic economics to back up his claims, and he's doing so in a fallacious manner. Usually, what this means, is people who aren't educated on the topic assume the guy with the Masters degree is right, and jump on board. I'm quite sure this is the effect he was going for. He draws parallels to "every major market bubble in the past century". No one balked at this but me. Seriously dude? You're trying to tell me that the housing bubble has parralels to this? Not a chance. The housing bubble was created by the banks, who had the ability to offer "amazing" (See: misleading) loans to unqualified buyers. Mortgage offices were bombarded my smokin-hot account executives who pushed cleavage in the face of Mortgage Brokers to sell these products (that were not a good fit for the buyers, but sounded good at first) at high commissions. This caused way more people to go out and buy homes, than could afford them, driving the prices higher. As more and more people started defaulting on these loans, credit became tighter, no one could qualify to buy homes, and prices plummeted. Not to mention, these mortgages were packaged up as investments and sold to the everyday investor. Mortgages the banks KNEW had high risk of default (which is why they are called sub-prime loans, and now basically don't exist). Government stepped in, and now our economy has been faultering for years, but hey, i can totally see the parallels to Legacy Magic cards. The Mortgage crisis was started by the banks (and the Fed for allowing it) by pushing products that affected the housing market, that they knew would have a high rate of defaulted loans. Sean's argument, is that SCG opens are like the mortgage brokers here, pushing the prices of cards up. This part is true, but SCG is not in a position to gain from said price increases, they do however gain from more people attending their events, which would actually be incentive to keep prices lower. Their margin on a card is set to a pretty standard % of their buy price, and the actual price they buy/sell at is not extremely indicitave of what type of profits they are bringing in. They make money off of volume...

This is what a fixed supply (vertical line) looks like. You can see, as demand (the curved line, representing consumer's willingness to pay) shifts to the right (this means an increase in the quantity demanded at a given price, and/or a willingness to pay more for the same quantity) there is a gradual increase in price. Where the two lines intersect (shown with the dotted horizontal line) is the equilibrium price, where there is an equal number of people who want to buy and sell at that price. You can put your left hand up to that curved line in the shape of an L, and slide your hand to the right. The intersection point (where your thumb crosses the vertical line) is the price of the product, and it slowly increases, until you hit the corner where your thumb meets your hand. There is a scarcity of the good, and prices start to jump up rapidly for very small changes (shifts L->R of your hand) in demand. There is no bubble here.  In reality, the demand (your Left hand) moved all at once and SCG (and other vendors) don't know how far it moved until they reach a buy price that people are finally willing to start dumping their goods to them. It starts out with a gradual change, but SCG has events every weekend and needs to fill their inventory, so they are aggressively seeking that equilibrium price.  "But Chad, you said they make money on volume, what does that have to do with anything?" Good question, when prices increase more people are willing to part with their cards and sell them to dealers who can flip for a profit. When prices decrease, SCG gets to buy cards on the cheap from the people who are scared prices will continue to decline, and their sales volume increases as more people want to buy at the lower price. This is the basis for his claim that SCG is artificially moving prices, but is so far from the truth. It's only possible for them to actually gain money when they are moving units AS THE PRICES ARE MOVING. But as of now, all the items on their "Hot Buys" list that are moving the fastest,  have 0 units in stock. Even if Sean claims that they are sandbagging these units to sell at a later date, they are missing out on the most opportune time to move these cards, PRICES ARE AT RECORD HIGHS.

The "bubble" that Sean is predicting, is only an actuality if SCG stops offering their events AND no other company steps in to replace them. Then the desire to hold these valuable cards, without the opportunity to use them in sanctioned play will fall off to a certain group of players, and the Demand will shift back to the left. You could consider this a "bubble bursting" if you wanted, but really its an external factor affecting the market, not the playability of the format or the cards. It's the incentive to play legacy is higher, and if that subsides, then yes the prices will too. That's what an equilibrium is, its a balance between buyers and sellers, and everytime a price corrects downward to meet that equilibrium point, there will always be someone claiming that there is a "bubble bursting" or that the "herd mentality" forced buying upward, but in fact it was an increase in ACTUAL demand in active legacy players. Period. I honestly can't understand how an educated Economist would make such claims with a straight face.

In summary, should the demand get so high that retailers literally can't hold any stock, then yes, SCG may stop offering Legacy events (i'd contend they'd continue holding them as an opportunity to buy stock) which would bring prices back down, but there just simply can't be a bubble here. Magic has a pretty open marketplace that heavily depends on AUCTIONS (ebay) to determine pricepoints. Auctions do a great job of depicting true willingness to pay, and real market price.

I hope this wasn't a boring lesson, but it really gets my goat when someone makes a bold claim, and backs it up with economic terms that are very incorrectly applied. A) he's bashing a company like SCG who is doing a great service to the community by putting on the events, and B) he's misusing economics to drive a madhouse of people to rally behind him, that are "homers" because they follow his article, or they read his side first, or it just seems cool to bash SCG.

For the record, I am not in anyway affiliated with Starcitygames.com

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend.

#FF Blog 4/1/2011

Happy Friday, all!

I'd like to give my first #FF to @dr_jeebus! Oh wait, april fools. har har har, so funny.
People do seem to love his stuff on @quietspec, and i do enjoy it too, but man i can't stand the abrasive tweets....

Anyone who actually takes the time to click my #FF blog knows i'm always starting it off with the Limited Resource podcast crew, @marshallLRcast and @modogodot. Ryan was quieter than usual this week, but marshall always chimes in on the hot topics... Solid follows even if you aren't into limited. If you are, you should be listening to their cast weekly on MTGcast.com

Next is my favorite twitter-ite to troll of the week: @joshjmtg He puts up awesome constructed material at quietspeculation.com but his twitter rants are Menendian-esque. Which brings me great joy. I had a lot of fun trolling him this week, as he prophelatized the death of Legacy, and searches for solutions. While I admire his commitment, I feel its a lost cause. At this point, if it would take reprinting classic (reserved or otherwise) staples to save the format, then its simply not meant to be. His entire argument revolves around the idea that if SCG can't stock Legacy cards, they'll stop holding legacy opens. This may or may not be true. They would still have an awesome opportunity for them to BUY legacy cards, and they still overlap the event with the Draft Open, so even if the number in attendance subsided, i dont see those going anywhere. BUT, even if they did, it wouldn't mean the "death" of legacy. Legacy was around (in smaller #s) before SCG opens, and there's no reason it wouldn't simply return to the way it was. It wasn't dead, cards were reasonably priced, and those who wanted to play the format still had opportunities to play in big events. Maybe not everyweekend, but who says there has to be a 5k legacy event everyweekend? Expecting WotC to want to adjust their marketing strategies to prop up a format that is doing just fine, is a little extreme.
Anyhow, Josh posed the question to @mtgaaron if WotC still wants legacy to me "accessible" i dont know if there was a response. Regardless, Josh is a good follow, he's very opinionated, and you can listen to me trolling him. :-) good times.

Sorta swamped today, but some of the people I really enjoy having on my list this week are:
@hobbesq
@stillhadthese (has a great blog at stillhadallthese.com great april fools joke!)
@semisober (which means you must also follow @kkrouner to get both sides of this trollscapade)
@franklepore
@wmap (Loved the chat on the basic lands this week which also included others, such as:)
@samstod
@affinityforblue (Just changed the name of Yo MTV Taps!, i never listened, but that name was classic, too bad)
@mixedknuts (he also trolls all the top writers constantly, fun)
@feb31st
@mrfridays
@two_eyes
@mtgcolorpie
@ertaislament (i thought he disappeared, turns out my twitter just unfollowed him, boo)
@kstube
@rwildernessr
@alawley
@necr0mancer
@chosler88
@dtlerch
@fatecreatr
@quietspec

Okay! so if you're not following those people, GO DO IT.
TTFN!
have a great friday (night magic)!