Pro Vs Lite

The only difference between Pro and Lite versions of ML Bot is the pricing system.

The Lite bot will let you choose a unique price for "category". For example, all the common foils will cost 0.5 tixs, all the regular mythics will cost 2 tixs (and so on). There are 20 categories of cards.

The Pro bot uses instead a pricelist, and prices each card it own "real" price. For example Flameshot will cost 0.080 and  Rhystic Scrying 0.073.

Consolidate the accounts

If you have a large family of bots maybe you would want to "consolidate" all of them, i.d. to view them in the same Online Control Panel - under a unique login and without relogging every time.

To do that just choose for them the same email address and the same password. If you already chose them, you have to change them from the Online Control Panel, by clicking on the "change email" and "change password" links in the right side bar, after login.

Once done, just logout and relog (with one of your accounts, which one does not matter): you will see all your bot listed in the dropdown menu.

Weekly Card Review (WCR5 Part2)

This is a new series of articles where I will review a card from the latest set Every week and its influences in constructed Standard, from the top mythic down to common cards that people might be ignoring their full potential. Between each review I will show a example of a deck where that card could fit. Please feel free to add more ideas and discuss the cards on each week!

B/W Tokens

 As much tuned and stable the deck felt to me while building and testing it ended up showing big weaknesses. From a returning Ratchet Bomb (Sun titan) to Slagstorm's or simply the fact that Sorin end's up stuck on hand as you have no way to protect it from a Elesh Norn I wouldn't rate it a tier 1 deck.

Here is the deck list:
Lands: 13 Plains 4 Isolated Chapel 3 Vault of the Archangel 3 Swamp 1 Shimmering Grotto,
Creatures: 4 Doomed Traveler 4 Champion of the Parish
Other Spells:  4 Midnight Haunting 4 Lingering Souls 4 Gather the Townsfolk 4 Intangible Virtue 4 Honor of the Pure 3 Oblivion Ring  2 Sword of War and Peace 2 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad 1 Elspeth Tirel.
Tune in next week for another card review...

MTGO Library Bot 4.88 is out!

ML Bot v. 4.88 is out. It has a number of small fixes, plus a better and faster connection with the wikiprice server - now your bot will be listed on wikiprice earlier than previous versions.

Momir Basic, part 1

I am going to continue the casual series. This time I will tell you more about format which is available only online - Momir Basic. The funniest format ever, where every game is different. That’s what makes Momir Basic so great. It requires an absolute minimum of investment, and your deck is competitive with every other deck in the tournament. First, let’s review the rules. Momir Basic decks consist of the following: exactly 60 Basic Lands (Swamp, Island, Forest, Mountain, Plains) and exactly 1 “Momir Vig” Vanguard card. No snow lands, no dual lands, only 60 basics allowed. No sideboard. The most leeway you have on this is that your lands can be from any set, and have any artwork.

For those unfamiliar with Vanguard magic, the concept is that you pick one avatar card that gives you some additional ability, and then build your deck with that ability in mind. The Momir Vig avatar allows you to start with 24 life, and grants the following ability: X, Discard a card: Put a token into play as a copy of a random creature card with converted mana cost X. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery and only once each turn.

I would like to emphasis that creatures put into play are tokens. It is very important. Any ‘bounce’ is equal to removal. Creatures trigger goes to graveyard effect when they die, but they do not stay in the graveyard, so reanimation is a bust (sorry Reya). Remember that you can only use this avatar once per turn. Even if you somehow draw X extra cards, they will be pretty useless.

While the format may seem trivial or impractically random, there is a surprising depth to the strategy involved. Next part is going to be about strategy.

Weekly Card Review (WCR5)

This is a new series of articles where I will review a card from the latest set Every week and its influences in constructed Standard, from the top mythic down to common cards that people might be ignoring their full potential. Between each review I will show a example of a deck where that card could fit. Please feel free to add more ideas and discuss the cards on each week!

Lingering Souls

This week we will discuss if Lingering Souls and the so anticipated Black/White tokens came up to a good stable performance.

Some of the best standard cards to play around with Lingering Souls are: Sorin, Lord of Innistrad ; Midnight haunting ; Gather the Townsfolk ; Intangible Virtue and  Increasing Devotion

Be tuned in the next few days to see what deck I managed to make around of this new Dark Ascension uncommon.

LITE Bot Sell 1:200, Buy 1:300

One of the basic question I get often get is: "how do I tell the bot to sell 200 commons for 1 tix, and buy 300 for 1"?

The answer is that you have to use the LITE Bot and set the proper prices in the "Prices Tab". In particular, you need to set the selling price for the commons to 0.005 (because 1 tix divided by 200 equals 0.005) and the buying price to 0.003 (1 tix divided by 300 would be 0.0033, but ML Bot round the value to 0.003)

Weekly Card Review (WCR4 part2)

This is a new series of articles where I will review a card from the latest set Every week and its influences in constructed Standard, from the top mythic down to common cards that people might be ignoring their full potential. Between each review I will show a example of a deck where that card could fit. Please feel free to add more ideas and discuss the cards on each week!

Séance Pod

This week the list I've ended up with was surprisingly very strong against tier one decks. Séance covered some of Birthing pod's weaknesses such as Day of Judgment, Oblivion ring, etc. Since it will still bring a creature to feed Pod after a "DOJ" or bring a Slime to deal with the "oblivion ringed" Birthing pod.

Here is the Deck list:

Lands: 9 forest 2 plains 1 island 1 Buried ruin 2 hinterland harbor 4 razorverge thicket 4 seachrome coast

Creatures: 4 birds of paradise 4 avacyn's pilgrim 2 viridian emissary 2 phantasmal image 1 spellskite 1 fiend hunter 1 deceiver exarch 1 blade splicer 1 sylvok replica1 phyrexian metamorph 2 solemn simulacrum 1 stonehorn dignitary 1 razor hippogriff 1 geist-honored monk 1 archon of justice 1 acidic slime 1 sunblast angel 1 sun titan 1 brutalizer exarch 1 wurmcoil engine 1 elesh norn, grand cenobite

Other spells: 4 Birthing Pod 2 Séance 1 Venser, the sojourner

MtGO Cube

The Cube format is coming to Magic Online! Here's what you need to know. "Cube" is a format where players draft from a pool of cards that's specially chosen to be awesome to draft. In this case, Tom LaPille designed a cube of 720 cards and Max McCall developed it, so you'll have the opportunity to draft and play with some of the most powerful cards from across the history of Magic. The Cube is going to be a limited-time event on Magic Online. Initially, it will be playable over the weekend of PAX East (April 6-8, 2012), and the inaugural event kicking this off will take place at PAX East, exclusive for that event’s attendees!

The Magic Online Cube Event at PAX East will have exactly 64 players, who will be broken into eight eight-person pods. Each pod is its own single-elimination draft pod. When each pod is down to its last player, the eight people still standing are put into a final eight-player single-elimination draft pod. This is a Phantom event, meaning participants will not keep the cards drafted during it. Players in this event should expect it to take roughly six hours.

If you want to be one of the first sixty-four people to play the Magic Online Cube, the PAX East event starts at 4:00 PM on Friday, April 6th in the LAN area. Aside from a Magic Online account, there's no entry requirement. Here are the prizes: 1st: $500 Best Buy® gift card plus 12 digital Dark Ascension boosters 2nd: $300 Best Buy gift card plus 9 digital Dark Ascension boosters 3rd/4th: $150 Best Buy gift card plus 6 digital Dark Ascension boosters 5th-8th: $100 Best Buy gift card plus 3 digital Dark Ascension boosters 9th-32nd: 2 digital Dark Ascension boosters 33rd-64th: 1 digital Dark Ascension booster

The Cube will return to Magic Online from time to time for differing periods. As it returns, you may notice that the Cube contents will occasionally change. Frankly speaking, I can’t wait to play it.

Weekly Card Review (WCR4)

This is a new series of articles where I will review a card from the latest set Every week and its influences in constructed Standard, from the top mythic down to common cards that people might be ignoring their full potential. Between each review I will show a example of a deck where that card could fit. Please feel free to add more ideas and discuss the cards on each week!

Séance

One of the things that mostly surprised me when Dark Ascension came out was how cards like Séance dropped into bulk prices so quickly. I believe this card is currently being undervalued and has its potential either on a self milling deck or Birthing Pod.

Some of the best standard cards to play around with Séance are: Birthing Pod, Solemn Simulacrum, Massacre Wurm, Sun Titan, Acidic Slime, Urabrask the Hidden, Brutalizer Exarch, Mulch.

Be tuned in the next few days to see what deck I managed to make around of this new Dark Ascension rare.

Q & A #1, part 2 of 2

So x4dow has two (2) PRO bots, one selling and one buying. He has accumulated some excess bulk cards and wants to sell the excess on a LITE bot and wants some advice as to the specifics.

Here is one opinion from the mana-ball shooting gallery.

He does not mention how much bulk is indeed bulk and what type they are. So I am going to assume that you have at least twenty four (24) copies of most commons.

The other question I have that you do not answer clearly is what is the purpose of the LITE bot, except that you want advice. This will affect the prices that you set.

The bottom line is that you are still going to have two (2) bots which sell cards.

So what price do you set? This is going to depend on how much profit/loss you are willing to take. If the goal is mainly to reduce inventory, then offer more cards per ticket. If you wish to maximize profit, offer less cards per ticket.

In either case, I recommend using a simple amount per ticket, whether it is five (5), eight (8), ten (10), etc. Do not use “weird” numbers like seven (7), thirteen (13), or seventy-seven (77). Anything which isn't cleanly divisible and would carry a credit. This is especially true for new bots which customers may not trust beyond the initial trade..

I would not recommend having more than eight (8) available cards on any bot at any given time. Why? Let's look at this from the customer perspective: If you are a new player and are just sifting through cards, if you see 427 Serpent Warriors for sale, are you going to conclude that it is a good card or a bad card? Now if you see just 3 of the same card, you might come to a different conclusion.

Weekly Card Review (WCR3 Part2)

This is a new series of articles where I will review a card from the latest set Every week and its influences in constructed Standard, from the top mythic down to common cards that people might be ignoring their full potential. Between each review I will show a example of a deck where that card could fit. Please feel free to add more ideas and discuss the cards on each week!

 Deadly Poison

 Since I haven't managed to do a really strong deck around of it, this week I've decided instead of take it into a very cheap and fun deck for casual playing. With a budget of about 10$ I've ended up with this list:
Lands: 9 Forest 8 Swamp
Creatures: 4 Glistener Elf 4 Ichorclaw myr 4 Blight Mamba 4 Rot Wolf 4 Phyrexian Crusader
Other Spells: 2 Infiltration lens 2 Deadly Allure 2 Hunger of the Howlpack 4 Mutagenic Growth 2 Ranger's Guile 2 Undying Evil 2 Virulent Wound 2 Livewire Lash 4 Titanic Growth.


This deck's winning method is by pumping your small infect creatures and killing your opponent with poison. Also having them being blocked is a "not so bad" result since you will likely draw cards out of it. This deck's main weakness are decks that can cast huge amount of creatures (such as tokens) or control decks (since they use creatures like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite).
Tune in next week for another card review.

Q & A #1

x4dow- Hi, I am a new bot owner, running 2 pro bots; 1 buying and 1 selling. Through the course of these first few months, I have acquired a pretty significant amount of bulk. This has inspired me to explore the possibility of opening a 3rd bot which would be a lite bulk selling bot. I have questions about it though, would you mind giving me a little insight as to how much product, proper prices, general start-up advice on setting up a lite bulk seller? Thank you so much, in advance!

This little comment was left in the comment section recently and I thought I would take a look at his dilemma. I also want to thank x4dow for asking that question and I wish to encourage all my readers to submit questions and comments. This is how I know how I am doing. It also lets me write about what interests you, my readers.

(It also makes my job easier in that I do not have to come up with topics which may or may not be of interest, but I'm not supposed to discuss that.)

But I am digressing. Rather than shortchange x4dow with a partial answer which I will end up recapping next time, I will leave it to the readers to post their advice in the comment section and next time I will review those comments and add my own. And hopefully this can become a regular feature here.

Weekly Card Review (WCR3)

This is a new series of articles where I will review a card from the latest set Every week and its influences in constructed Standard, from the top mythic down to common cards that people might be ignoring their full potential. Between each review I will show a example of a deck where that card could fit. Please feel free to add more ideas and discuss the cards on each week!

Deadly Allure

Not exactly the most powerful uncommon on the set  but sure it has his qualities. This card shows its best when used in creatures you don't mind being blocked such as Phyrexian Obliterator, Viridian Emissary, Glissa, the Taitor (happly all green and black).


I wont be able to make a tier 1 deck around this card, but that wont stop me from having a bit of fun with this card.
Some of the best standard cards to play around with Deadly Allure are: Phyrexian Obliterator, Glissa, the traitor, Phyrexian Crusader, Viridian Emissary, Lure, Ichorclaw Myr.

Be tuned in the next few days to see what deck I managed to make around of this new uncommon.

Weekly Card Review (WCR2 Part2)

This is a new series of articles where I will review a card from the latest set Every week and its influences in constructed Standard, from the top mythic down to common cards that people might be ignoring their full potential. Between each review I will show a example of a deck where that card could fit. Please feel free to add more ideas and discuss the cards on each week!

Riteless

Here is the list I've ended up with, I didn't had a whole lot of time to tune this deck but the list is quite similar to the recently popular fRites deck with a few variations. Here is what I've ended up with:

Lands: 2 Shimmering Grotto 1 Blackcleave Cliffs 4 Sulfur Falls 1 Clifftop Retreat 3 Island 2 Plains 5 Swamp 4 Mountain 4 Evolving Wilds

Creatures: 2 Phantasmal Image 2 Solemn Simulacrum 3 Sun Titan 1 Massacre wurm 2 Rune-Scarred Demon 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Other spells: 4 Faithless Looting 2 Whipflare 4 Desperate Ravings 2 Heartless Summoning 1 Forbidden Alchemy 1 Oblivion Ring 2 Liliana of the veil 2 Day of judgment 4 Unburial Rites 1 Black Sun's Zenith

This deck's winning method is to mill itself using Faithless Looting/Desperate Ravings/Forbidden Alchemy to then bring big creatures using Unburial Rites, but also has alternatives such as Hard casting creatures from your hand using Solem Simulacrum and Heartless Summoning to bring them a couple of turns earlier. This deck's main weakness are graveyard hate cards, such as, Surgical Extraction, Grafdigger's Cage and Nihil Spellbomb. 

Tune in next week for another card review.