MTGO Library Bot 6.62 - improved Oversell Protection

ML Bot 6.62 is a major update adding a new feature: the Oversell Protection "Customerless".

We introduced the Oversell Protection in version 6.46 (January 26th). Briefly summarizing, the oversell protection is a set of rules that apply to customers that buy more than "x" copies of a certain card in a 24 hour period. It can be useful to protect your bots from someone buying all the copies of a certain card (for example to speculate on it). A user buying all the copies of a card is not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want an always stocked chain this could be annoying, especially when the prices of the cards move fast (such as during the Release Events).

Now, what happens if a customer has many accounts and simply change them to circumvent the protection? This is where the new option "customerless" comes into play.
You can basically tell your bot to sell a maximum of "X" copies of a certain card in 24h, regardless of the customers. This helps, for example, if you mispriced a card or if a sudden market change increase the value of a card and you are now selling it for cheap money.

Just pay attention that this mode can reduce your trades, so you may want to use but not ABUSE it :-) Sometimes it is just good to sell a card for cheap money, take a small profit and rotate the inventory than keeping the card in stock in the hope to sell it at its maximum price.

ML Bot 6.62 fixes also a minor problem with the Classified Message, a problem introduced in 6.61. The bot could post wrong cards on the first message (just the first time, the other messages are fine).

We also fixed a login problem happening on Windows XP - the bot could not recognize the "disconnect" message during the login.

The most expensive card on Magic Online is the MOCS Promo for March!

There has never been a better month to try to get 15 QPs to qualify for the MOCS. If you do, you get the promo. If you win the first semifinal tournament or manage to get 35 QPs, you get two promo cards. The MOCS 2014 March Season runs from February 26, 2014, through March 26, 2014. The promo card this time is the most expensive card on Magic Online: Lion's Eye Diamond!

GO GET IT! The announcement: http://community.wizards.com/content/blog/4059186 Also, remember that this card is extremely likely to be reprinted in Vintage Masters, so make sure you SELL IT before Vintage Master spoiler season starts.

MTGO Library Bot 6.61

When ML Bot loads Mtgo, it firstly creates the .csv of the collection. This is probably the most "delicate" action the bot performs - if it fails (because of a trade request, because of a longer than expected lag...) the csv file does not create and the bot does not "learn" its own collection. If someone opens a trade immediately, the bot could buy cards it really does not need.


ML Bot 6.61 fixes this problem in two ways:

•  the creation of the csv phase is now more robust and able to handle trade requests and other alert windows / messages
• the bot aborts the trade(s) if the csv failed. The bot will retry the creation of the csv right after the aborted trade

MTG Action figures

Vinyl figures, set to release in April, will feature iconic Magic: The Gathering Planeswalkers Jace Beleren, Garruk Wildspeaker, Chandra Nalaar, Liliana Vess, Ajani Goldmane, and Nissa Revane. Funko Pop! Vinyl figures are 3.75 inch tall super stylized vinyl figures

Living the dream in Magic 2014 Limited

I have done a lot of M14 Phantom Sealed Deck events lately. They are the best + EV tournaments on Magic Online (if you are a better than average player) and they are very fun.

This time I managed to build a very ambitious deck, having the power of Angelic Accord + Bogbrew Witch + Bubbling Cauldron + Dark Prophecy + Festering Newt. Think about it. That is quite hard to beat.

The question that remains then is: Did I manage to do it?

Well, find our for yourself by watching the video below:


Here is the deck list: 10 Swamp 7 Plains 1 Haunted Plate Mail 1 Celestial Flare 1 Sentinel Sliver 1 Auramancer 2 Pacifism 1 Bonescythe Sliver 1 Minotaur Abomination 2 Mark of the Vampire 1 Siege Mastodon 1 Dark Prophecy 1 Liturgy of Blood 1 Capashen Knight 1 Blood Bairn 1 Griffin Sentinel 1 Deathgaze Cockatrice 1 Bogbrew Witch 1 Corpse Hauler 1 Angelic Accord 1 Bubbling Cauldron 1 Festering Newt 1 Sengir Vampire Follow my YouTube channel at youtube.com/MagicGatheringStrat for more M14 goodies.

MTGO Library Bot 6.60

ML Bot 6.60 has just been released! The update fixes a bug with "Special Buddies". The bug gave them a discount on the Event Tickets, while the Event Tickets should not count as normal cards and should never be discounted.
ML Bot 6.60 includes also:

• a more robust creation of the .csv, sometimes failing on slow computer when the "Save As" window does not appear immediately
• a faster Buying Mode. If the wishlist already picked 400 items, the bot won't look for boosters (and it won't move the top filters to select "boosters/packs"
• fixed a bug that caused the bot to select "TOKEN" while in trade. The bug happened when the bot tries to post a message on the Classified Board and clicks on the wrong scene

Weekly MTGO Finance Tips episode 7

Short summary of the video:

• Avoid trying to call shots for the Pro Tour. It is fun, but real MTGO Finance is about the long-term grind for the EV, not about bragging what calls you made and hide those who failed.
• Buy Molten Rain (0,15), Great Furnace (0,19), Unmake (0,36)
• Sell Tarmogoyf, Dual Lands, LED and Force of Will.

Want to know why shotscalling is bad and will lose you Money in the long run? Check this out:

MTGO Library Bot 6.59

The new version of ML Bot (6.59) fixes few minor problems of 6.57. In particular:

• 6.59 is able to buy Born of the Gods Boosters. 6.57 used to pick them, but then removed them from the "You Get" column.
• Boosters will now appear on wikiprice. This should boost the trades since boosters are an important part of the Mtgo economy and wikiprice has always been unable to list them correctly.
• a couple of tunings for wikiprice that should result in a better sync.

Wikiprice is currently experiencing issues

Wikiprice (http://mtgowikiprice.com/) is currently experiencing some issues and it is listing just few cards. We are working on the issue and hope to have everything up and running as usual in few hours

Two videos from the Born of the Gods prerelease

The first two players on the MagicGatheringStrat team have played the Prerelease.

Brennon takes on this Prerelease Event



Julien crushes this Prerelease draft and has some great insights into the format:





You will find more Born of the Gods videos on Youtube.com/MagicGatheringStrat

The details of the Born of the Gods Prerelease and Release Events can be found here: https://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/01132014

Conspiracy

The Conspiracy will be released on June, 6. It is the first-ever multiplayer-focused booster set with new mechanics that enhance multiplayer play. Returning favorites from throughout Magic's history round out the set and cultivate an environment of deception and treachery. The Magic: The Gathering–Conspiracy set is designed to be drafted with six to eight players who then split into groups of three or four players for free-for-all multiplayer games. Set features 210 cards. However, Conspiracy will not be released on Magic Online, but certain cards from the set will be made available in Vintage Masters. What is intresting, thirteen cards will not be legal in Vintage and Legacy. Prolly, cards which give you control over target pernament permanently, the effect doesn't end at end of game. Just my blind guess.

MTGO Library Bot 6.57 - Born of the Gods

ML Bot 6.57 supports the new set Born of the Gods - BNG. The new pricelist is available online for download, or automatically during the update process.

We remind all the LITE botters to update their pricelist too because the bot uses it as reference for the names of the cards.

All the botters with slow internet connection and version < 6.53 should update their bots manually using the installer available for download on the Online Control Panel. This problem has been fixed with version 6.54, so if you are already using 6.54 (or superior) you are ok.

MTGO Library Bot 6.56

ML Bot 6.56 has just been released, fixing an important bug related to the loading of the wishlist. 

• on the computers with the "A:\" drive (the floppy disk, physical or virtual) one of the dropdown menus was "longer" than expected and ML Bot was unable to click there correctly. The bot selected the "$recycle" file instead of the "wishlist.dek" file, and this resulted in an endless loop (resulting, at the end, in trades aborted).
• opening the wishlist is now faster. If the C:\ drive is already selected, the bot won't click it. If "wishlist.dek" is already selected, the bot won't click it.
• the bot accepts the trades at the end of csv processing phase. This reduces the possibility of having a trade request window stucked in the "Collection" tab while you are in another tab (usually the "Classified" tab).
• removed the TeamViewer "Sponsored Session" message from the Login screen
• the bot now enters Buying Mode when the customers select an Event Ticket. The features had been broken with version 6.53 and the customers had to type "sell" to enter Buying Mode

Botters with versions < 6.53 and slow internet connections: PLEASE NOTE that ML Bot is not able to update automatically. This problem has been fixed in 6.54 but you need to update manually using the installer provided on your Online Control Panel.

The New Player Limited tournaments are nerfed

For a long time, the 4-man New Player Sealed Deck and the 4-man New Played Drafts have been the limited tournaments with the best EV on Magic Online. If you were a decent player, you could go infinite on these fairly easily. Not anymore. Starting today, the cost of the 4-man tournaments have increased from 1 Event Ticket + 1 New Player Ticket to 1 Event Ticket + 2 New Player Tickets without a corresponding prize increase.

It was probably too good  anyway. For some reason we get a truly horrid -EV Scheduled Sealed Deck tournament you can play for 5 New Player Tickets as well.

They also fixed the long-running Pauper bugs with the cards Oubliette and Kaervek's Torch. Finally.

Here is the announcement: http://community.wizards.com/content/blog/4051771

As a sidenote, the 4-man tournaments are still the best EV limited tournaments on Magic Online.

MTGO Library Bot 6.55

ML Bot 6.55 is a major release improving a number of aspects. The most important changes are:

• fixed a bug in the Buying mode causing the bot to purchase more cards than necessary from the TD0 set.
• fixed a bug in the Buying mode causing Mtgo to "freeze". The bot clicked too fast and Mtgo used to freeze. 
• The loading of the wishlist is now faster and sends less clicks to the Mtgo client.
• fixed a minor problem with the ocr, sometimes not reading the first line of the "You Give" column. This resulted in aborted trades.
• to save CPU, we put the name of the bot in the "Search" text field in the Classified. This drops Mtgo CPU usage from 30% to 1%. We suspect the high-cpu usage is due to Mtgo constantly refreshing the board 
• the bot is now able to handle the "Already Logged in" window in the Login screen

The new card frame in M15

There are five big changes in card frame starting with Magic2015

1) The font style. Wizards are replacing the "Matrix Bold" font with a new, own unique proprietary font named "Beleren".

2) The holofoil stamp in the bottom center of all rares and mythics card going forward

3) The collector info in the lower left of the card. To card's number rarity, set and language were added.

4) Decreased border size and slightly bigger art and text boxes.

5) The designer credit on specific cards. Take a look at flavor text of "Waste Not" card.

Do you enjoy the changes?

A sample invasion block draft

Four days ago I wrote about the Invasion Block Flashback drafts happening this week: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/02/drafting-invasion-block.html

As this is one of my favorite draft formats, I quickly jumped into a queue, trying to put my own theories into practice:





This was my deck after the draft portion:

1 Kavu Runner
5 Mountain
1 Reckless Spite
1 Terminal Moraine
1 Tribal Flames
1 Zombie Boa
1 Skittish Kavu
1 Magma Burst
2 Reef Shaman
1 Sea Snidd
1 Quicksilver Dagger
8 Island
1 Bog Down
1 Exclude
1 Hunting Drake
1 Urborg Uprising
1 Tundra Kavu
1 Thunderscape Battlemage
1 Volcano Imp
1 Ancient Kavu
2 Living Airship
2 Arctic Merfolk
4 Swamp

Not the best Grixis deck I have seen. Not by a long shot. Still, there were some decent removal.

After luckboxing the first match, it was time for the second:

And here is the final round video:

Try the format while you can. It will be gone by Wednesday. It is a lot of fun.

Here are some other useful links for the format:

Watch this to see other drafters drafting IPA:
http://www.draftmagic.com/2012/06/22/ipa-invasionplaneshiftapocalypse-draft-1/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItbNlyqc7NY
http://www.mtgoacademy.com/lets-play-magic-online-invasion-block-draft-4/
http://www.twitch.tv/numotthenummy/b/322134802

Read this to get better at IPA draft:
http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/02/drafting-invasion-block.html
http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2013/06/drawing-live-flashback-draft-invasion/

MTGO Library Bot 6.53

ML Bot 6.53 has just been released. 

It fixes some minor bugs related to wikiprice and to the collection history, not updating anymore after 26th January, when we moved wikiprice to a new server.

Fixed also some reading problems in Buying Mode.

Drafting invasion block

Invasion - Planeshift - Apocalypse is a legendary draft format, maybe because it was one of the two initial formats offered on Magic Online.

This is multicolor draft at its best. This is what Dragon's Maze wanted to be.

Here I will share the strategies that has worked for me in the past and tell you a little about the format.

You want to be the Grixis deck
Try to go UBR every time. That's it. You have now mastered IPA block draft. I am not kidding.

Grixis is just the color combination you want to be. The removal in black and red are off the charts. This is a set from a different age. Creatures will die all the time. You, the Grixis King, will be the one who is killing them.



What if you can't go Grixis?
Try to be Rakdos (BR) or Dimir (BU). You will still have excellent removal. Izzet (UR) could work but is not as strong as the other two.

Some other things to consider

• Armadillo Cloak is a super strong card that you will have a hard time finding a deck for.
• Gruul (GR) works.
• UW Flyers is a deck in this format too, especially with splashed Armadillo Cloaks.
• Five color green is a real strategy. Go base green, get mana fixing and bombs.
• Three colors and 18 lands is a good idea in this format.

Good luck! The Flashback drafts begin today.

Improved Oversell Protection

We have just deployed an oversell protection improvement (see here for the original article).

The Oversell Protection let you choose the names of the bots that will be affected, as well the "width" of the oversell threshold: "4x of a card among all the bots", or "just among the chain?". You can now easily destroy a rule by clicking on the "delete" link or remove a single bot by clicking the "x" close to each name.

The concept of "active/unactive" rule has also been removed and now all the listed rules are active - this should make the page easier to read, especially when multiple rules are created. Having the bot name listed makes also clear who is affected, and by which rules.

Install Magic Online bots: Virtualization on Linux

We host an article by Enrique taken from his blog: http://www.mtgeconomist.com/en

You can read the original article here: http://www.mtgeconomist.com/en/instalar-bots-de-magic-online-virtualizacion-en-linux-parte-8-3/

After analyzing systems with Windows as the host operating system, in this second article (the first one is here) I will show you a comparison between the most important programs I have found for virtualization in Linux.
I also remind you the configuration of each VM I have used on the benchmarks, which are setup with the minimum requirements to run the Magic Online client (this is valid for the current version 3.0 not the beta):

• Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2 “Lite”
• CPU: 1 kernel
• RAM memory: 1.5 GB
• Hard Disk: 20 GB
• Video Resolution: 1440×900

The OS is a very small version of the original one. You can create an installation disk from the original image and remove all non-required extra tools with a program like nLite. In my case, my version of Windows XP consumes about 60-70 MB of RAM. You can see the reasons for this setup in detail on the previous article of this series.

Virtualization with Linux hosting OS: benchmark setup

I have found out that the non-free software support for Linux is much more limited than for other operating systems. The tools that I have tested on this benchmark are the same I used on Windows virtualization and are also completely free of charge: VirtualBox 4.3.4 by Oracle and VMware Player 6.0.1. If you know another virtualization software for Linux you can tell me so I can also test its performance.

I have compared the performance by measuring the average times of a sequence of tests that any VM will run frequently. The two applications have been tested on a third computer, which differs from the Windows machines, and with the following configuration:

	Computer 3
Hosting OS	Ubuntu 13.04 64bit (Raring Ringtail)
Processor	Intel Core i7 E-610 2.53 GHz
Hardware Virtualization	Yes
RAM Memoria	4 GB
Hard Disk	500 GB 7200rpm
Graphics Card	Intel i915

As I have only one Linux machine available, the comparison focuses on the virtualization software for this OS. I remind you that the tests consists of measuring the time taken for the VM to perform the following tasks:

• VM first boot. Measures the performance without using the cache memory, useful if virtualization software starts upon booting the hosting OS.
• VM second boot. While you don’t run other programs, if you reboot the VM you will see how its performance is improved.
• Simultaneous boot of 2 VMs (same software). The aim consists of testing how virtualization software manages computer resources among multiple VMs. This test is useful for measuring the performance if using more than one store.
• Simultaneous boot of 2 VMs (other software). This test is used to test how an virtualization tool manages the system resources without caring about other VMs from other software.
• Running Magic Online update tool (Kicker). As this application mainly depends on the communication with the server of Magic Online, I wanted to use it to get an idea of ​​how virtualization software manages the network connection.
• Running Magic Online client. This test allows to compare the performance of data loading of Magic Online as well as the management of the CPU computation performed by the virtualization software.
• Load the price list of the MTGO Library bot. This phase of the bot setup makes heavy use of memory, which is important during the execution of the store.

Results and discussion

The conditions of each test has been controlled in the same way as the description I offered on the article about virtualization for Windows. Each test was repeated 5 times and the result is the average time obtained from these repetitions. The virtual OS has just the required applications pre-installed (Magic Online 3.0, .NET Framework and MTGO Library), and its hard disk has been defragmented and optimized. The bot version used is 6.31. In the following graphic you can see the results (the lower the better value).

Unlike what happened with Windows as the hosting OS, virtualization on Linux does not have a clear winner between both application tested. On one hand, VMware performs much better than VirtualBox on system startup and initializing the Magic Online update tool. This result suggests that VMware has optimized these processes for Windows XP OS client as well as the network management. However, once MTGO Library bot starts the performance of VirtualBox seems to be much better than VMware.

Another important point is the performance drop of the hosting OS when running two VMs at once. It is clear that the bottleneck is imposed by the limited amount of RAM memory (I have no Linux PCs with more memory). VirtualBox quickly makes use of the virtual memory and eventually collapses the hosting OS, while VMware seems to manage this resource a little better.

As I commented for the virtualization in Windows, the best way to use 2 VMs on a machine with limited RAM memory is running each VM with a different application. As you can see from the results, the boot time using VMware and VirtualBox is much lower than with 2 VMs running over the same software.

In conclusion, for machines with Linux as their hosting OS I think I would use the VirtualBox application. While it is slower in the boot step, the performance is much more relevant during the execution of MTGO Library bot, and thus I would give priority to this consideration. If you want to setup 2 stores and you are lack of RAM, then the best solution is certainly to configure each VM with a different application.

On the next article I will describe the tests I have done to benchmark the virtualization in OS X, the third and final hosting OS used in this series.

The five gods from Journey into Nyx

We have already met the five major gods and five of the minor gods of Theros. But there are still five more gods to be published in Journey into Nyx (prerelease events start on April 26, 2014).

Let me tell you about these five minor gods.

Iroas, God of Victory (RW)
Iroas is the twin brother of Mogis and while both are gods of war, they have a very different outlook and do not get along. He is worshipped in Akros and the Iroan Games (the Theros version of the Olympics) are held in his honor.

The flavor text from Arena Athlete: “The Iroan Games award no medals. Athletes vie for a visit from Iroas, god of victory.”  


Athreos (BW)
It is unclear what Athreos title will be a this time. He is Charon, the ferryman, and is responsible for getting those who die to Erebos's realm. He is surely upset about the Returned who defied the orderly process of Death that Athreos is responsible for.

The flavor text from Sentry of the Underworld: “When Athreos gathers the newly dead to be ferried across the Five Rivers that Ring the World, he sends skeletal griffins to fetch those who stray.” 

Pharika (GB)
She is the godess of Gorgons, healing and poison. She appears as a Gorgon herself. The other gods most likely despise her.

Pharika’s Cure has the flavor text:"’The venom cleanses the sickness from your body, but it will not be pleasant, and you may not survive. Pharika’s blessings are fickle.’ —Solon, acolyte of Pharika”

Keranos, God of Storms (RU)
While Heliod is the lawful good side of Zeus, Keranos seems to be the wrathful, Lightning side of Zeus. If it wasn't for the blue side of him he would seem to be very much like Thor of Nordic mythology. When he is not blasting stuff, Keranos sends visions and prophecies all over the place. One of his most well-known followers is the Queen of Akros, Cymede, a frequent receives of his visions.

The flavor text from Steam Augury: “Keranos is a fickle god, delivering punishment as readily as prophecy.” 

Kruphix, God of Horizons (UG)
Kruphis is pretty much a mystery at this Point. He does not seem to be very Simic at all, but rather deal in time, unblockability and untapping things. We just don't know very much about him at this point in time, which surely is what he intends.

The flavor text from Prophet of Kruphix: "Time is fluid as a dance and truth as fleeting."

How to draft Born of the Gods?

The Born of the Gods set features 165 cards. Prerelease events are about to start. New sets bring on new cards and new loves. With BNG there is no different. Basing on acronym B.R.E.A.D which is very useful way to grade cards in limited I have selected cards worth drafting in Born of the Gods. This time I also included rares and mythic, but I was more harsh to them and I selected only the best ones. Every letter from this acronym symbolize one group of cards. Therefore, B is for Bombs, R is for Removal, E is for Evasion, A is for Aggro, D is for Dregs. Basing on B.R.E.A.D Here we go:

White: Excoriate, Archetype of Courage, Ghostblade Eidolon, Ornitharch, Eidolon of Countless Battles, Hero of Iroas, Silent Sentinel, Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Blue: Chorus of the Tides,Sphinx's Disciple, Archetype of Imagination, Flitterstep Eidolon, Oracle's Insight, Siren of the Fanged Coast, Arbiter of the Ideal, Tromokratis,
Black: Asphyxiate, Weight of the Underworld, Bile Blight, Drown in Sorrow, Shrike Harpy, Eater of Hope, Fate Unraveler, Gild, Herald of Torment, Pain Seer, Champion of Stray Souls
Red: Bolt of Keranos, Fall of the Hammer, Pharagax Giant, Archetype of Aggression, Everflame Eidolon,  Searing Blood, Thunder Brute, Fated Conflageration, Felhide Spiritbinder, Forgestoker Dragon, Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
Green: Pheres-Band Tromper, Graverobber Spider, Mischief and Mayhem, Nessian Demolok, Noble Quarry, Raised by Wolves, Courser of Cruphix, Hero of Leina Tower, Hunter's Prowess, Nessian Wild Ravager.
Mulicolor: Ephara's Enlightenment, Fanatic of Xenagos, Reap What is Sown, Siren of the Silent Song, Ephara, God of the Polis, Kiora, the Crashing Wave, Mogis, God of Slaughter, Phenax, God of Deception, Xenagos, God of Revels

Good luck!