The Three Biggest MTG Stories of 2013

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2013 was a huge year for Magic the Gathering players and the community-at-large. From Ravnica to Theros there was excitement all throughout the multiverse. Today we’ll look back on the three biggest stories of the year. First, we’ll break down the important information to refresh your memory. Next, you’ll get a chance to learn about what changes have taken place in the wake of that event. Finally, I’ll give you my outlook for 2014 with respect to these challenges that Wizards faces. Without further ado, the top three stories of 2013 were …

Pro Tour Event Coverage

The premier WotC Top 25 rankings from October 3rd, 2013

The Original Story

This story exploded when Star City Games published part one of John Butler’s manifesto on Magic Event Coverage. In it, Butler analyzed tournament coverage at the highest levels of the game (Pro Tour and Grand Prix) and identified deficiencies and problems based on his experiences in the world of broadcasting similar products such as the PGA Tour. In part two, Butler proposed shifts in perspective that Wizards would need to undertake in order to begin to improve their presentation  of coverage. Chiefly among these were the idea that the Pro Tour should attract fans to the game, not necessarily new players. Finally, in part three, Butler provided some ideas for tangible improvements. The most important one of these, which we’ll talk about more in a moment, is the ability to know who the top players in the world are at any time. In the final movement of Butler’s opus he provided some quick fixes for coverage, which were designed to have minimal up-front cost to Wizards.

What’s Happened Since

Not much took place immediately following the publication of Butler’s piece though it was successful in kick-starting the massive discussions that are still going on with regards to how to improve event coverage. From the ranks of the highest pros to the lowliest bloggers, everyone is talking about event coverage. Things began to pick up the following week when this very site published the first ever rankings of MTG Pro Players based on the formula put forth by Butler. This ultimately led to the creation of Wizards’ own Top 25 rankings which have since become one of the cornerstones of event coverage.

Outlook for 2014

It’s clear that Wizards takes event coverage seriously and more importantly they take the fan response seriously as well. It seems to me that because no one was speaking out for the changes John Butler put forth, Wizards didn’t have the necessary feedback to make these changes. 2014 should be a year of great change for Pro Tour Coverage. What about the Hipsters of the Coast Top 100? Behind the scenes we have been working to improve it and build a product that we can be proud of and can stand side-by-side with Wizards’ own offering. Expect to hear more about this early in 2014.

Grand Prix Las Vegas

That’s a whole lot of Magic

The Original Story

You can check out the original story we ran on GP Las Vegas here. This was a record-setting event with 4,500 players that would ultimately lead to a variety of changes in the structure of Grand Prix tournaments. GP Vegas had a plethora of technical challenges, all of which tournament organizer Cascade Games handled with great poise. They ultimately had to cap the attendance after the rate  of online registrations grew out of hand. The format was Modern Masters limited, which compounded the demand for the event. Several hundred Tarmogoyfs and Dark Confidants later, Neal Oliver stood victorious over the rest of the field.

What’s Happened Since

In the wake of GP Las Vegas, Wizards made several changes to the Grand Prix format. Grand Prix prize payout increased and will scale based on attendance. Saturday on-site registration discontinued. Byes at team events discontinued [link]. Presumably more changes could be in the works.

Outlook for 2014

Attendance will continue to grow in 2014, there’s no doubt about that. I think it is a safe bet that Wizards will continue to monitor the situation and will address the challenge of running Grand Prix events accordingly, as they have done in 2013. However, the real question is when (not if) Grand Prix Las Vegas’s record 4,500 player attendance record will be broken. The 2014 calendar has 44 GP events on the schedule. However, we can easily hone in on candidates for record-breaking by looking at North American Limited tournaments:

• Grand Prix Sacramento, January 17-19: Theros
• Grand Prix Mexico City, February 14-16: Theros/Born of the Gods
• Grand Prix Montreal, March 14-16: Theros/Born of the Gods
• Grand Prix Philadelphia, April 11-13: Theros/Born of the Gods
• Grand Prix Atlanta, May 23-25: Theros Block
• Grand Prix Washington, DC, June 27-29: Theros Block
• Grand Prix Portland, August 8-10: Magic 2015 Team
• Grand Prix Salt Lake City, September 5-7: Magic 2015
• Grand Prix Orlando, October 3-5: “Huey”
• Grand Prix Nashville, October 31-November 2: “Huey” Team
• Grand Prix Ottawa, November 21-23: “Huey”

First, we’ll weed out the extreme weather environments which nixes Montreal in March, Atlanta in May, and Ottawa in November. These events general have lower attendance so we can discount them. Next, team events can get crossed off the list. If GP Providence is any example, these events will have trouble scratching 2,000 players let alone 4,500. That gets rid of Portland and Nashville. We can also forget Salt Lake City because honestly, who is going to show up for a core set event (I’m sure I’ll regret saying this later).

That leaves Sacramento, Mexico City, Philadelphia, Washington, and Orlando. Since it’s still early in the year, and Theros is losing its luster, I don’t expect Sacramento to be a big draw. Philadelphia in April is going to be in competition with PAX East up in Boston, which means Wizards itself won’t have a large presence and a large portion of casual players will be up north for Penny Arcade Expo instead of playing Magic in Philly. So, if I had to pick between Mexico City, Washington, and Orlando, my money is on Orlando being the big event of 2014.

Orlando has a lot going for it with both Disney/Epcot and Universal being in the neighborhood. It’s no Las Vegas, but it’s still a ton of fun as a vacation site which means people will be more inclined to make large group trips. Also, for these same reasons, Orlando is an easy place to get discounts on airfare and hotels, making it an attractive destination for traveling Magic players. Orlando was home to  a 500-player GP in Summer 2004 and a 900-player GP in Winter 2012. However, those were both constructed events. Orlando will also be the first Grand Prix for “Huey”, the large fall set.

I’ll put the over/under on GP Orlando attendance at 2,700 players. Which would you take?

Magic Online

Welcome to Hell

The Original Story

On a seemingly innocuous weekend in November, relatively well-liked and widely followed Pro Tour Hall of Fame player Brian Kibler logged into Magic Online (MTGO) to play in the Magic Online Championship Series (MOCS) Season 11 Championship. The event crashed in the 7th round, Kibler wrote a blog post about how Magic Online is a pile of crap, and then everything exploded. Within a few days of Kibler’s post, current Czar of Magic Online Worth Wollpert announced that daily, premier, MOCS, and PTQ events would be taken down while the issues were addressed. The community was in an uproar. We were suddenly learning all about Brazilians who actually earn a living and support their families by grinding MTGO daily events. The fallout was astounding.

The following week I put together this history of Magic Online. It doesn’t paint a very promising picture.

What’s Happened Since

Daily events eventually returned to MTGO, along with premier events. However, the MOCS and PTQ events remain offline for the time being. In the meantime, we’ve gotten some “updates” from a handful of folks working on MTGO:

• Czar Worth Wollpert, the executive producer of Magic Online, wrote an executive summary in which he spouts a bunch of rhetoric about Wizards’ commitment to Magic Online and all of the wonderful things they plan on delivering in 2014
• Clayton Kroh, who I guess is in charge of support, wrote a piece detailing how the support team is structured and how it operates. First, it’s actually ridiculous that anyone felt this needed to be shared with the community. Second, they shared it so now it’s time to comment on it. The key thing for me was how incredibly small MTGO’s support team actually is. Kroh states that “There are approximately sixty people on the game support team.” This is broken down into the Tier-1 team, better known as the Online Response Crew, or ORC for short, the Tier-2 team, which is phone support, and the “crack operations” team which handles all of the really complex stuff, which amounts to 5% of all the calls that the Tier-2 team can’t handle. Kroh then tells us there are about 40 ORCs, which means there are only 20 people split between the phone lines and the operations team. They handle thousands of issues daily. Something tells me that if MTGO wants to expand this is going to have to increase along with it.
• Chris Kiritz, who does something managerial I suppose, wrote about three topics: the new beta client, bringing back leagues, and managing MTGO. Holy crap did this guy draw the short stick. No one likes the beta client, leagues have been missing for over five years now, and literally everybody is sick of the rhetoric about are sick of listening to people talk about a) how committed they are to MTGO, b) how challenging it is to work on MTGO, or c) empty promises that things will get better.
• Finally, developer James Sooy wrote about the technical challenges of MTGO. The “too-long; didn’t read” for this piece is that MTGO is vastly complex and instead of simply rewriting it we’re just going to keep trying really hard to make it better. Also, we’re going to keep working on the beta client even though literally all of you hate it.

Outlook for 2014

The outlook is bleak. If you take a look at my “history of MTGO” column you may note a pattern. That pattern goes like this: Wizards releases/upgrades MTGO; things start breaking; Wizards apologizes and swears they’ll fix it soon; lather, rinse, and repeat.  We’re heading to a point where three major things are going to happen in 2014. This includes the return of MOCS/PTQ events, the transition to the new beta client, and the release of Vintage Masters. Based on past performance, by the end of 2014 it should be time to take MTGO out back and put it out of its misery and start all over from scratch.

Oh, and I would give 2-to-1 odds on Worth Wollpert no longer being the executive producer by 2015.

The Quick Hits

• Owen Turtenwald speaks out against dropping to keep your sealed pool [Owen’s a Win]
• John Dale Beety bids fond farewell to PTQs which he will no longer be attending [StarCity Games]
• Magic 2010-14 take on the Commander Precon’s in the final match of the Sweet-16 of SCG’s Battle of the Blocks [StarCity Games]
• Michael Martin shares “An FNM Carol” putting a Magic twist on a classic tale [StarCity Games]
• Evan Erwin breaks down the 2014 StarCity Games Open Circuit [StarCity Games]
• Jason Alt draws out his plans for 2014 over at QS [Quiet Speculation]
• Mark Nestico invites us to remember why we love to play the game [StarCity Games]
• Heather Lafferty interviews former Geek & Sundry intern Alicen Lewis [Gamer Boy, Gamer Girl]
• Josh Silvestri provides a year in review from the perspective of judges [Silvestri Says]
• Abe Sargent shares his Magic resolutions for 2014 [Gathering Magic]
• Titus Chalk shares another chapter of his new book about Magic [Gathering Magic]
• Wizards shares a holiday gift with everyone [Daily MTG]
• Chris VanMeter knocks out his 2013 recap and 2014 plans [StarCity Games]
• PVDDR has some fun trivia questions for us this week [PV’s Playhouse]
• Tim Akpinar rounds up a year of Eternal Magic [Hope Eternal]
• Glenn Jones points out some lessons he’s learned for players while covering events [StarCity Games]
• Brian Braun-Duin airs out his grievances for Festivus [StarCity Games]
• Jon Corpola puts up his personal resolutions for 2014 [Randomly Manipulating Cardboard]
• Tony Mei makes some resolutions for 2014 after playing Magic for less than a year [Scrub Report]
• Nick Vigabool puts your Magic vocabulary to the test [Gathering Magic]
• Blake Rasmussen presents his 2013 Year-End Awards [Gathering Magic]
• Anthony Lowry pens a creative story of the transition from Team Geist to Team Chandra [StarCity Games]

Wallpaper of the Week

This week’s wallpaper is the multiverse’s newest planeswalker. Kiora, the Crashing Wave, comes complete with a complimentary possibly erotic squid/octopus tentacle extending from behind her. If that wasn’t bad enough, the artwork is centered, the worst thing you can do with a desktop wallpaper. Kiora herself is pretty much a standard “sexy merfolk” image which could have easily been the  art for Empress Galina instead. I expect my planeswalkers to exude power and awe, not a lobster-tail covered rump.

Grade: C

The Week Ahead

There won’t be any Grand Prix or Pro Tour events this weekend so enjoy your New Year celebrations however you please. If you need your Magic fix, check out the coverage of the SCG Open which will be kicking off 2014 in Indianapolis, IN on January 4th and 5th. From all of us at Hipsters of the Coast, have a happy and healthy 2014!

What We Learned is a weekly feature here at Hipsters of the Coast written by former amateur Magic Player Rich Stein, who came really close to making day two of a Grand Prix on several occasions. Each week we will take a look at the past seven days of major events, big news items, and community happenings so that you can keep up-to-date on all the latest and greatest Magic: the Gathering community news.