Shards of Alara going Live Monday 10/20/2008

Be prepared Paupers - the new booster format and Shards of Alara hit Monday. We already had this week's patch Wednesday that prepared the live system for MTGO.

IPA/OTJ goes to Classic from Extended. Futex is now just Extended Pauper (OLS onward) and STD loses PLC/TS. I will miss Vampiric Link - was fun in my BlackRush beatdown STD pauper deck. I reteched my stuff into white (still BW hybrid) using the nice 0/1 Moth that gets +4 lifegain anytime it blocks (it stacks as you declare blocking so you get the 4 lifegain even if its burned).

We have a pesky PDC classic bug with the Flagbearers. Coaltion Honor Guard and Standard Bearer do not work properly against storm affects (Grapeshot and Temporal Fissure specifically). Proper way to function - gotta target CHG/SB if in play until they are removed *then* you can target player/controller/other creatures in play. Been noted, Wotc_Lee Sharpe is working with devs (its not an A1 priority but its in top 20%) to get it resolved eventually.

Classic is tough - wide format from 7th/ipa to X/alara starting next monday. Thousands of commons to choose from. With the Gold (multicolor) and hybrid (two unique colors) commons - IPA isn't the only solution anymore. Discard decks still have some great tech so WATCH OUT.

I want to thank Wildman, Newman and Spikeboy for all the game testing as of late - its been lots of fun and got me back into STD pauper gaming. Y'all rock!

Last note - I really dislike this new booster policy - 1 land in each booster of Shards/Alara going forward. Meaning we're stuck with a ton of land as veterans. A Much Simpler solution for paper and MTGO -- SELL LAND PACKS TO THE NEWBIES. ITS bad that I already have over 750 lands as it stands now. Less reasons for me to buy boosters as I'm not in the mood to buy land this way. I don't mind random lands (foils preferred lol). But get the land packs out to the newbies and don't punish/flood veterans with common basic land.

Rock on folks!

MTGO bill of rights...

Last night there was an incident in MTGO. I won't go into details (see the MTGO general forums for that) but suffice to say:

Adepts are not fully equipped or properly trained to deal with real life issues of their users. When a concerned "MTGO citizen" approaches an Adept with worries about another MTGO user/citizen regarding serious issues - they need to have empathy and an escalation path. Not coldness nor inanity cut/paste/ignore the issue.

Overall - I see MTGO improving but having to deal with poorly trained Adepts at times can grind against my goodwill and spirit of the MTGOverse.

On a positive note - PDCX development continues. I am looking forward to the first beta game. Will be 4-12 players and it will last 4-6 weeks or more.

Rock on folks and keep up the Pauper Fight!

My KithkinArmyRush (PDC STANDARD DECK) is pretty cool:

4 Pacifism
22 Plains
4 Amrou Seekers
4 Cenn's Heir
4 Fortify
4 Goldmeadow Harrier
4 Kinsbaile Skirmisher
3 Plover Knights
3 Ballyrush Banneret
3 Kithkin Zephyrnaut
4 Mosquito Guard
1 Order of the Golden Cricket

Sideboard
3 Detainment Spell
3 Mana Tithe
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Pentarch Ward
3 Soaring Hope

Now I know it can be fine tuned and upgraded. I may put Sunlance in the sideboard or Ghost Fire as well SB. Any suggestions - please let know!

Our first FNMO/Friday Night Magic Online went...

..pretty good. We had a few dozen folks visit /fnmo throughout the day. Dragonmage65 hosted the earlier trivia events which went well (hourly trivia related to Magic/MTGO/WOTC).

Later when I logged in at 4:55 PM Pacific - we got 4 rounds of Magic related trivia and prizes (thank you MirrorMage for your donations!) and then I hosted a Paupers 2hg Classic with a twist (only Cranial Plating was restricted, rares/uncs banned, artifact lands no restrictions).

We had 7 players so I joined in. Two tables for round one and the 2nd round had the winning team from each table face off.

It went well, people had fun and we're going to do more next week (6/22/2007) in /join FNMO.

Hope to see you there

If you are new to MTGO - a few suggestions

I constantly see the following:

"I'm new to Magic Online, but I've played paper Magic for a while...

..Once I have the software installed, and when/if I shell out the $9.99, how should I get started?"

And here is what I recommend:

Actually with the 9.99 you get as a coupon - you can get started in MTGO - in PDC.

What's PDC? Thats Pauper Deck Challenge, 100% commons gaming.

You could take your 9.99 coupon and buy 9 Event Tickets (we call them TIX in MTGO). Thats the MTGO world currency.

Use the event tickets and buy bulk commons, uncommons, rares from traders/sellers/etc:

Bulk commons run about 128 per tix.
Bulk uncommons run 20-32 per tix.
Bulk rares run 3-6 per tix.

Chase cards (Terminate, Eternal Witness, Wrath of God as examples) cost more. Check websites for values .

Getting into MTGO via commons gives you an inexpensive way to test the waters.

If you need some help with commons or land see me in game (tharionwind) and we'll help you get started.

Welcome to MTGO!

MTGO survived Future Sight release events.

...With only one major crash and some lag occasionally. There are some good commons in the set and for the block PDC looks to be gaining some interesting tech.

I participated in one FUT release league event - went 1-4. So goes my rust - I needed some WD40 to clear it out. The league games got me back into tech and building decks.

I look forward to 10th coming out and will be posting some stuff as I find out if any chase commons are in the base 10th set (sometimes, rarely, sorry for the pun).

Serious concerns about whats going on in MTGO - but overall things were decent during the release events.

The low risk/high reward of PDC

MTGO is a very fun game. Can be amazing to play with people from around the world. We're on V2.5 and sometimes it crashes when there are too many people on (ie when there are over 3000 on at any one time).

They have a v3 beta and you can check the boards for info on that. Its ok - I'm not happy on the UI but if its stable - thats a start.

I digress though - even with these problems MTGO can be fun and you *DO* meet people from around the world. Especially in PDC - great people to play with. Getting/collecting 4x commons (for you don't need more than 4 of any non-basic-land in MTGO to build decks) in MTGO is a lot less than going for rares and uncommons - esp high powered decks.

Casual and tournament fun in PDC gives you so much more "bang for the buck" also because most of the PDC tournaments (if not all) are free: They are Player Run Events. Rarely will you see a charge for a PDC tournament/event.