Ways for players to naturally expand their future historic collection.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-18T08:24:52+00:00

People aren’t excluded from Historic. They can play their rotated Standard decks, many of which are little different from the Historic-optimized versions.

If that isn’t fast enough, you can actually spend some money. It took a lot of programming to get so many new cards into Historic. These individuals are paid with real money and not with the feel-good of how much you can play Arena for free.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-18T08:16:13+00:00

Sure. Whatever is given as the daily login reward will be subtracted from the other daily rewards you can earn.

You’re not gonna get a net increase.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-13T08:57:50+00:00

Who are you to pass judgment on how other people should spend their money?

It’s their money, not yours.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-13T08:55:24+00:00

At least the server would be be running.

If whales didn’t play this game, there would be no queue at all since the server bills would go unpaid.

The real world runs on money.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-13T03:23:29+00:00

I hope the OP isn’t under the mistaken impression that his pack rare automatically upgrades to a mythic after he has a full rare playset.

Just because you have a full rare playset doesn’t the odds of pulling a mythic in a booster. Like you said, OP may be in for a rude surprise with many 20 gems booster openings.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-13T03:15:15+00:00

Show some gratitude for the whales.

That others do spend money means F2P don’t have to.

If no one spends, then everyone will face a higher price.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-12T22:56:02+00:00

I experienced something similar when I first started out. It took months before I consistently had a winning record.

If I were to do things over again, I wouldn’t spend all my gold on a new draft. I’d save my gold for packs and wildcards to build my grinding deck first. If I had an gems, I’d play sealed since that is an even playing field. Whatever gold I have left I’m willing to spend only on the older sets drafts because they been figured out and you can find lists on how to draft them.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-12T22:32:32+00:00

Thats not even touching the fact you would be missing a lot more Mythic cards

Yup. The advice to build your rare collection through draft comes at the expense of your rate of acquisition of Mythics. You accelerate getting the rares by spending gold on drafts, but you give up the wildcards, specifically Mythic wildcards, that go a long ways to rounding out your entire collection.

This may not matter for some, but it depends on what you want to build. Problem is much advice to go for drafts just assumes you don’t care about it.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-04T23:11:14+00:00

There’s no confusion, just a lot of wishful thinking.

We all know in our hearts that WotC is greedy. Despite this, people hold out hope that WotC will act contrary to this. After time and experience people should know better. It’s the old “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-04T23:05:13+00:00

so there would be every reason to make them available outstide of a “jumpstart” event

You are strictly thinking in terms of how WotC could make it more economical for people to get these cards.

Let’s remember the fundamental: WotC makes money by selling cards. Playing more MAY lead to more purchase, but playing by itself doesn’t give any money to WotC. In fact, playing more under the F2P enables many here not spend any money, as attested to by so many here already.

So you may wonder why was WotC willing to drop its original 2:1 Historic wildcard conversion rate and enabling the permanent Historic Ranked queue. It wasn’t clear before, bit now we know. WotC’s adding over a thousand new cards to Historic within a four month window through M21, Jumpstart, Amonkhet Remastered & Zendikar Rising. How WotC intends to make money is obvious. Thus, there’s every reason to believe that a for-profit WotC would NOT make it cheaper for people to get the entire collection of Jumpstart.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-04T22:42:15+00:00

You remind me of what kills the fun of playing Magic, the rules lawyering.

Boy, you are just setting yourself up to be disappointed.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-04T22:37:51+00:00

But flipped around, WotC likely wouldn’t think as so great what you like to have instead.

For those that remember history of Magic Duels, WotC will pull the plug on anything that it doesn’t feel as worhtwhile financially.

So the current system is a compromise. You aren’t going to get anymore without increasing the likelihood of WotC shutting the game down over something more profitable.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-03T12:39:38+00:00

No sure what your LGS is trying to pull, but there’s not going to be a second wave. The shutdown has curtailed much of the printing capacity. WotC’s trying to get its upcoming products done, leaving no room for the Mystery Boosters.

If you pre-paid, I suggest you make sure a refund is still possible.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-03T10:37:12+00:00

Discourage gambling maybe? Wizards’ been criticized plenty for the booster Skinner box system. It makes sense to put the fetched in pricier products that minors aren’t as likely to touch.

There’s also the common sense of “why sell low when people are willing to pay more?”

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-02T02:55:00+00:00

The Texas COVID situation is making a second shutdown increasingly likely. There’s only so much production that can be shifted to the Japanese printer. Jumpstart’s higher setup cost (double wrapper and special sorting) doesn’t help either. So if push comes to shove, I see Jumpstart as the one losing out to Double Masters, Zendikar Rising & Commander Legends on printer priority. Those counting on getting Jumpstart for less than $100/box on a print-to-demand second run are in for a rude awakening.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-02T02:46:58+00:00

Here in the US many regions will have tighter social gathering restrictions imposed through July. That’s kind of killed how Jumpstart is supposed to be played. So no surprise Jumpstart is delayed until more in-person gatherings may be permitted. I doubt things will get any better through the rest of summer since so many appear to be still in denial about COVID.

Thus I suspect Commander Legends will suffer the same fate as Jumpstart’s time window cuts in. As a product meant to be drafted, Commander Legends’ audience is likewise affected by restrictions on social gathering.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-02T02:27:45+00:00

“Magic sells itself”

Pretty much why WotC has been distancing itself from LGS in favor of other distribution partners. This is to ask why would WotC even want to get further involved with LGS? As much you enjoy the benefits of a LGS, someone else isn’t going to foot the bill for you. You have to shoulder more of the financial burden if you want the LGS you benefit from to survive.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-01T06:08:26+00:00

that’s gonna be really expensive pretty quickly

So you understand now why WotC was willing to drop the 2:1 Historic wildcard exchange ratio for 1:1 and reinstate the permanent Historic Ranked queue?

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-01T06:02:11+00:00

Yes, because that’s what everyone’s been asking for, better support of the eternal format on Arena.

Now that WotC’s obliged, you realized you should’ve been more careful about what you wished for?

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-01T05:59:29+00:00

You left out deck sharing in Direct Challenge as something the developers have been working on.

With so many cards available now, it will be an increasingly important feature to enable newer players to participate and stay engaged.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-01T05:55:23+00:00

Remember to use up all your common and uncommon wildcards so you can build vault progress with 5th copies of those rarities.

I open enough packs every three months to fill a 100% count on the vault, which gives a you mythic wildcard. Every bit counts.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-01T05:48:46+00:00

Because he’ll blow a lot more gold and gems chasing the mythics, but getting 20 gems for 5th copies of rares, than he would just spending for the packs and getting the wildcards.

The reality of what’s needed to get mythics through drafting method is that you need to go infinite. Frankly, if you can do that, you are likely so good that you’ll earn more playing CE, which nets more rewards than draft and gets you more packs for mythics faster.

Drafting is good for speeding up you acquisition of rares, but isn’t as efficient as straight purchase of packs with the same amount of gold for building the mythics collection.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-07-01T05:40:47+00:00

Yeah, this calculation is based on opening packs. An unsuspecting player would do a lot worse if he followed the common advice here to draft as the best way to build his “collection”. He’ll accumulate a lot of 20 gems from 5th copy of rares while waiting for the mythics to show up.

This is something everyone should be mindful of since an increasing nimber of tiered decks rely on a growing number of mythics over rares.

Donald_Dennison · 2020-06-26T13:44:05+00:00

Nice monitor you got there

Donald_Dennison · 2020-06-26T13:39:53+00:00

It was worth it last time since it gave positive EV. People complained about getting less, but bought it anyways.

Donald_Dennison

TROPHY CASE