What a week! A paradigm shift in how magic works, went down the K hole on MTGO and my boss quit at work. Highs and lows, strikes and gutters.
Let’s start with the new block system. Personally speaking this doesn’t effect me all that much. I play modern legacy and vintage. After looking back on how much I spent on standard’s trending two years ago and seeing that I was able to capitalize on rotation to create eternal format decks, I don’t think I’ll be investing in standard anytime soon.
That said, there are a few things I took away from the announcement.
1. Cards will be Standard legal for 6 months less than they were before.
This means that spikes in prices and inflation/deflation from hot cards in standard will be more rapid. You have 25% less time to get rid of standard staples (I still draft, so that’s inportant) before they are lost in the ocean of worthless bulk that often washes up on the shores of the eternal formats.
2. Draft is gonna get weird.
Without a third set draft formats are gonna play out strangely, two of this set one of that. I’m sure WOTC will experiment with some ideas to balance things. This means that we have less time to figure out a format before it rotates. I like this. I generally test a lot of a draft format early, do well because I’m ahead of the curve then as the general public gets the format and I play against folks that have a better idea what’s going on, my percentage smooths out… In the wrong way. I’m best in the first couple of weeks of a format. Which makes sense, I’m fine with getting “worse” as everyone else catches up to speed. I know my strengths and I surely know my weaknesses.
3. Draft is gonna change more often.
Going with what I said previously, this is good news for me. I like new formats. Also non core sets tend to be a little more complex. I’m less likely to lose in formats that are more play dependent than bomb dependent. That’s not everyone’s opinion, but I think overall, most folks like to be able to play their way out of a loss than to OMFGDRAGONS! their way out.
That’s the long and short of what I took away from the changes.
Going down the MTGO K-Hole
I spent a bunch of money last week on MTGO. I was able to put together a reasonable vintage deck, and I have the workings for legacy and modern. For the most part I’m just drafting though. I’m still quite green on Magic Online. Misclicks happen and I’ve lost some games due to that, but I really appreciate the ability to just draft whenever.
I had to calm down a little with the drafting this week, though. I’m not buying paper magic as much thanks to going eternal, but I still need to account for magic related trips and tourney entries which have become more frequent since I stopped bar tending on weekends.
You can really blow your stack without thinking about it much online. That said, practicing is so much more streamlined.
Prices are so strange online, some cards are super cheap, and then other stuff is insanely high. Lucky for me I was able to uncover my old account. There wasn’t a ton of value but there was stuff I could use. I’m sure there are a ton of useful tricks folks use to grind out value on MTGO that I haven’t figured out. It’s sort of like starting over with the game so I’m excited to experiment with it.
Today I’m on a bus to Virginia heading to a wedding so no SCG for me. Next week I’m gonna go over what I’ve learned about MTGO and in hope to get a top ten list of MTGO tricks and tips going.:( Until then…
Zac Clark, DurdleMagus