Noteworthy cards that were not in Vintage Masters

If you want to play Vintage (or Legacy) constructed in the coming months, you better look into picking up these cards soon as they (or already have) gone up in price.

Here are some noteworthy cards.

Wasteland
The most glaring omission of them all. What were they thinking?

When others assume that Wizards is just crazy, I often think they have things planned. Their plans might not be the best, but there are often plans. Alternate art exists and I think we will see Wasteland again quite soon. If nothing else, it could be a MOCS promo.

Rishadan Port
Does any deck actually play this? It is rare, for certain. If you need it, you should probably get it.

Misdirection
Interestingly reprinted in Conspiracy but not in VMA?

Daze
The most expensive Pauper card looks to retain that spot. Sees play in eternal formats other than Pauper as well.

Lotus Petal
This no longer sees any play in Pauper but it is still useful in the more powerful eternal formats.

Gaea's Cradle
This is the next MOCS promo. There is a window where you can get the MOCS promo for cheap. After that, this card will stay expensive and it is a card that we are guaranteed never to see in Standard.

Show and Tell & Sneak Attack
Interesting. There seems to be a pattern here. What if a Legacy Masters is planned down the line?

Mystical Tutor
Still cheap from the flashback drafts. Buy it now.

Onslaught Fetchlands
I would stay away from the Onslaught fetches. They are more likely to be reprinted for every day that passes, probably along with the Zendikar fetches.

City of Traitors
That is a lot of mana and there are not many copies available online.

MTGO Library Bot 6.93

ML Bot 6.93 has just been released. It fixes a minor sync problem with wikiprice and introduces a more detailed bug report (for our developers) -

One deck has to leave The Modern Noob

Its time for one of the three decks to leave The Modern Noob.

The Modern Noob is my series about learning Modern. It has been going on since October and is scheduled to end with me choosing a deck to play in a Premier Event in the first week of June (June 2nd-3rd, I am getting my first dog ever on the 4th, so I better be finished by then).


Learn more about the Modern Noob here: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/04/the-modern-noob-finale.html

I want you to tell me which deck should leave The Modern Noob. You have until the downtime on Wednesday to vote. Just write the name of the deck you want to see gone in the comments below.



Statistics update
Soul Sisters 46-12 (79%)
Tron 11-4 (73%)
Goblins 13-8 (62%)


Deck Lists: 
Soul Sisters http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2013/11/decks-of-modern-noob-soul-sisters.html
Tron: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/03/a-new-deck-for-modern-noob.html
Goblins: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/01/decks-of-modern-noob.html

Recent Matches

Soul Sisters vs RG Tron
One of the very hardest matchups for the Soul Sisters deck!

Goblins vs America Control
Somebody said that the biggest fault with control in Modern is that it does not even work against the decks it is supposed to beat. Lets see if the gobbos can prevail here.

Modern Noob vs Delver and a Rakdos Rogue Deck

The Modern Noob on mtgolibrary
I will report on my progress in The Modern Noob every Sunday here on mtgolibrary until June 8th, when I will report how the Premier Event/Daily worked out and then sell all my Modern cards when they peak like crazy during Modern PTQ Season. I will start playing the format again in September after rebuying everything I need.

New textless lands

Terese Nielsen added a photo of new promo textless lands on her Facebook. Allegedly, it is going to be a judge promo. However, this news short after going public was removed from her fanpage. Prolly, Wizards forced her to do so.

WebShop APIs example usage

The following code snippet shows how to use the inventory api to populate a table of cards. It is a good starting point if you need to build you own views.

WebShop APIs 2.0

Last week we released the WebShop APIs (http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2014/05/introducing-webshop-apis.html) with the idea to ease the creation of webshops.You botters loved that and gave us many feedback, thank you :-), we did not expect such a warm welcome.

Yesterday we released "version 2.0" with the goal to simplify the usage. The most important API request, the Inventory one, has been rewritten and now contains plain card names and bot names instead of numerical identifiers. You don't need to build two tables to decode the correspondence with the real names.
The parameter of the request is no more "set_number" but directly the name of the set, for example THS or BNG.

The result is a Json text, for example:

<...>

{"card_name":Eidolon+of+Countless+Battles,"set_name":BNG,"rarity":R,"bot":xxx,"foil":1,"buy_price":0.726,"buy_quantity":3,"sell_price":1.26,"sell_quantity":0},{"card_name":Elite+Skirmisher,"set_name":BNG,"rarity":C,"bot":yyy,"foil":0,"buy_price":0.003,"buy_quantity":3,"sell_price":0.017,"sell_quantity":0},

<...>

Two more flashback drafts announced

To my suprise there was the following announcement:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/05202014/cube

Its an announcement about the MTGO cube returning, but at the end there was the following:

There are two Flashback Drafts that will run simultaneously with this Cube:

May 28-June 4: Kamigawa Block
June 4-June 11: Dark Ascension and Innistrad from theInnistrad block.

This means that you, my fellow botters, now have the opportunity to pick up valuable cards from these sets. I don't expect many people to play Kamigawa block but one expensive common will drop sharply in price at least: Ninja of the Deep Hours

Innistrad Block will probably be very popular, making this an ideal time to pick up Thalias, Snapcaster Mages and other rares that will be affected by the drafts.

Modern PTQ season is almost upon us. The safe guess is that Modern card prices will reach new heights during June and July. 

Here are the main targets you want to pick up for both blocks.

Kamigawa: Ninja of the Deep Hours, Azusa, Through the Breach, Kiki-Jiki, Goryo's Vengance, Jitte, Threads of Disloyalty, Gifts Ungiven, Kataki.

Remember, there are no mythic rares in this block, so if there is any interest in the drafts at all, prices for even the most wanted cards should drop at least a little.

Innistrad: Snapcaster Mage, Lingering Souls, Cavern of Souls, Resto, Vexing Devil, Thalia, Grafdigger's Cage, Stony Silence, Sulfur Falls

The mythics are probably affected less than the rares.

Introducing WebShop APIs

Yesterday we released the first version of the WebShop APIs, an Application Programming Interface to connect your webshop online with the bots.

Using the APIs you will be able to populate your collection in real time and sell cards even out of Magic Online, on your website, exactly as mtgotraders.com or cardbot do. Many botters already do this using unconventional solutions, for example parsing the file "cardsneededandcollection.txt" or parsing the .csv of the collections. WebShop APIs help simplify this and offer a solid core to build your online presence.

APIs are simple http get requests and the result is a text file formatted in Json, so you can easily parse it with one the many libraries available online - or you can parse it as a standard text file.

Please feel free to experiment with the APIs. If you are not a programmer and want to build your webshop, please contact us and our staff will help you.

The Modern Noob

The Modern Noob is my series about learning Modern. It has been going on since October and is scheduled to end with me choosing a deck to play in a Premier Event in the first week of June (June 2nd-6th).

Learn more about the Modern Noob here: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/04/the-modern-noob-finale.html

Statistics update
Soul Sisters 45-12 (79%)
Tron 9-4 (69%)
Goblins 12-8 (60%)

Deck Lists: 
Soul Sisters http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2013/11/decks-of-modern-noob-soul-sisters.html
Tron: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/03/a-new-deck-for-modern-noob.html
Goblins: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/01/decks-of-modern-noob.html

Recent Matches

Soul Sisters vs Mono Green Aggro
The Mono Green Aggro deck has been very popular in the practice room lately.

Tron vs Two Rogue Decks

Goblins vs Goryo's Vengeance

One of the strengths of the Goblins deck is its ability to punish combo decks by being ultrafast. 

The Modern Noob on mtgolibrary
I will report on my progress in The Modern Noob every Sunday here on mtgolibrary until June 8th, when I will report how the Premier Event did and then sell all my Modern cards when they peak like crazy during Modern PTQ Season. I will start playing the format again in September after rebuying everything I need.

Vintage Masters

The Vintage Masters preview have started so I decided to put it all together what we do know about this set.
- 325 cards in total: 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 105 rares, 30 mythics, 9 special
- a booster pack consist of 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare or mythic, 1 either foil card or special (p9)
- A power nine card every 53 boosters
- only cards not Modern legal, meaning everything below 8th Edition. Exception may be cards on Modern banlist.
- Archetypes.: Green-Blue(madness) Blue-White(control) White-Black(Attrition) Red-White(Weenie) Green-White("little kid") Blue-Black(storm) Blue-Red(counter-burn) Black-Red(rakdos aggro) Black-Green(the rock) Red-Green (fatty ramp)

When I saw the first cards from Vintage Masters and names of archetypes introduced by Wizards I thought to myself - it looks like old extended. At the time archetypes like Madness, The Rock, Goblins, Affinity, Psychatog were dominating the metagame. There were are some storms decks around too.

What were the flagship cards that time?
Spiritmonger, Pernicious Deed, Genesis, Aquamoeba, Wonder, Rootwalla, Roar of the Wurm, Intuition, Psychatog, Cephalid Coliseum, Fact or Fiction, Tendrils of Agony, Cunning Wish, Goblin Piledriver, Sarcomancy, Carnophage, Meddling Mage, Phyrexian Negator

There cards are high likely to get reprinted. What is more, I'm quite sure there won't be Vintage Masters 2, too many good cards were already spoilered by now and there is no much left what may attract players to draft VM2. Unless, they present very similar product. That's why I think there might be Wasteland in Vintage Masters too!

What are your thoughts about it?
What else may be inside?

MTGO Library Bot 6.92

ML Bot 6.92 has just been released. It is a minor release fixing a couple of bugs and improving network communication with mtgolibrary server

ML Bot for Mtgo v4 switchover

Hello botters,

As you probably already know, mtgo v3 will be retired soon and mtgo v4 will be the only official mtgo client. The announcement from Chris Kiritz can be found here and gives July as a date, right before the release of M15.

Our plan is to release the ML Bot client for mtgo v4 two weeks before the switchover so everyone will have the time to update their bots. This will not be a "beta", testing is no more required - this will be the official "first version" of the bot for mtgo v4.

In order to make the transaction smooth, we will be online 24/7 on LiveChat and on Skype (our account is "mtgolibrary.support"). You will probably need to add more ram to your virtual machines because Mtgo v4 needs more ram than v3 (2gb per machine are recommended). We will provide some virtual machines in case you need a good starting point. Please make sure you can install and launch Mtgo v4 on your machines and that it runs without crashes - we are in fact aware of some users unable to load Mtgo v4 properly.

We will run some v4 bots next week (we'll give the names), feel free to trade with them and write us the feedback.

MTGO Library Bot 6.91

ML Bot 6.91 has just been released. It's a maintenance build, fixing some minor problems with oldest versions.

Vintage Masters

It is Vintage Master Preview week.

Marshall Suitcliffe talks about the draft format here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/li/299

I have found GatheringMagic and Wizards together have the best spoiler pages (this time spoilers have been all over the place, being revealed buried inside articles, on reddit and elsewhere)

Gathering Magic:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152346165842025.1073741852.76993727024&type=1

Wizards:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/vintagemasters/cig

It looks like a fun draft format (especially for someone who was around at the time these cards were played) but lets talk about what this means financially for speculators and bot owners.

People will dump stuff on your bots
Some cards will probably never recover their value. Force of Will is never going to be a $100 card again (it is just a rare in Vintage Masters). The Dual Lands will take years to recover, if they ever do. Don't have your bots buying these cards.

So how do you handle this?
There are several options.

* Stop buying this week
* Lower your buy prices so that someone else gets dumped on
* Stay on top of what is being spoiled and immediatly adjust

You should have been aware of this risk months ago. Always look ahead and see what is coming so you can minimize risk. A small bot chain can get wiped out by a massive reprint release like Vintage Masters.

The weekly article by Pete Jahn is a good place to see what is coming. Here is his latest article: http://puremtgo.com/articles/state-program-may-9th-2014

Price predictions for Vintage Masters rares
When predicting card prices, it helps to look at precedents, similar sets that did similar things. Modern Masters come to mind.

The first question is if Vinage Masters will be drafted as much as Modern Masters. That is a very complicated question that probably deserves its own article. I will assume that it will.

The bottom for Modern Masters prices was July 2nd, 2013, as you can see here:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/index/MMA#online

Cryptic Command was the most expensive rare at its bottom, costing 7.7 tickets on June 17th.

Demand for Cryptic Command was huge. Modern was popular already then. Vintage will never be as popular as Modern, not even if you include Legacy demand in that calculation.

Hypothesis: No rare in Vintage Masters will be as expensive as Cryptic Command. 

So, if you time your buying right, you should be able to get Force of Will and Dual Lands for less than 7.7 tickets. Maybe even much less.

Mythics (and special rares like the power nine) are harder to predict.

What should you do if you have Vintage Masters rares?
Sell them. Yesterday. All of them. They will be crashing hard.

If you have money uncommons that are now being reprinted (such as Reanmite), your situation is even worse.

Commons (Daze is highly likely but not spoiled yet) will not be worth more than 15 cents (Manamorphose was one of the most expensive common in MMA and can be looked on as an example).

When should you buy Vintage Masters for speculation?
The bottom for Modern Masters was earlier than I thought before I started writing this article. My kneejerk advice would be to buy the week after the drafts end, but it is possible that you should buy earlier. So make sure you buy heavily into the set no later than the week after the drafts end. One caveat, though: If Vintage fails to take off, this might just be another Master's Edition set and you might have to pick your speculations carefully. If you bought into Modern Masters last year, it did not really matter which cards you bought. The majority of them have gone up.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy Vintage Masters.

Journey into Nyx: God packs

Random Journey into Nyx boosters were seeded to be literally and figuratively "God Packs" and contained all 15 Gods of Theros block.

But what does the official rule say if we crack God pack?
7.4 Abnormal Product
Neither Wizards of the Coast nor the Tournament Organizer guarantee any specific distribution of card rarities or frequency in a particular booster pack or tournament pack. If a player receives an unconventional distribution of rarities or frequencies in a particular booster pack or tournament pack, he or she must call a judge. The final decision to replace or allow the atypical product is at the discretion of the Head Judge and the Tournament Organizer.

and what is the Wizards suggestion?
If one of your players has been blessed by the gods and experiences the thrill of opening one of these packs in a limited event you're running, we suggest that you amplify the excitement by letting the player keep that pack, removing those cards from the event, and issuing them a new unopened booster as a replacement for the event at no charge. Other players will see this as a sign that the gods have blessed your store, and they may come back to play in more events.

 Unfortunately, you cannot open such booster online.
Anyway, good marketing move WotC!

Did you or your mates open God pack during pre-release?

The Modern Noob Update of May 11th

The Modern Noob is my series about learning Modern. It has been going on since October and is scheduled to end with me choosing a deck to play in a Premier Event in the first week of June (June 2nd-6th).

Learn more about the Modern Noob here: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/04/the-modern-noob-finale.html

Statistics update
Soul Sisters 44-12 (79%)
Tron 7-4 (64%)
Goblins 11-8 (58%)

Deck Lists: 
Soul Sisters http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2013/11/decks-of-modern-noob-soul-sisters.html
Tron: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/03/a-new-deck-for-modern-noob.html
Goblins: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/01/decks-of-modern-noob.html

Recent Matches

Soul Sisters vs Splinter Twin

This match shows quite clearly one of the big problem matchups for Soul Sisters. Having a problem matchup with the #1 deck in the format is a huge problem. On the other hand, nobody has an easy Splinter Twin matchup, do they?

Tron vs Pyromancer Finkel Storm

Also a problem matchup! This is the biggest problem for Tron, even bigger than Splinter Twin.

Goblins vs UR Delver

The Modern Noob on mtgolibrary
I will report on my progress in The Modern Noob every Sunday here on mtgolibrary until June 8th, when I will report how the Premier Event did and then sell all my Modern cards when they peak like crazy during Modern PTQ Season. I will start playing the format again in September after rebuying everything I need.

The full play list
If you want to see all the crazy decks I have tried and how it went, check out The Modern Noob Season 1 playlist here:

MTGO Library Bot 6.88 - Realtime Inventory

At the end of March we released the Inventory (see here http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2014/03/inventory.html and here http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2014/03/improved-inventory-part-ii.html), a tool to check your collection from remote. Inventory used to update every 2 hours, so it didn't track your exact collection after a trade, more or less like mtgowikiprice of the first period.

ML Bot 6.88 introduces the realtime Inventory, meaning that after a trade the bots will call the server and will update their Inventories.
We are developing the feature both for Mtgo v3 and Mtgo v4: our codebase is the same. In general every feature you see now on the current client will be there on Mtgo v4.

Beta testing results and ML Bot v4 Open Beta

Hello Botters,

with the spotlight over and the chaotic Beta client at rest for now, we can go back to our normal bot business. We had a few ML bots running and we strenuously tested them over the last 48 hours and overall we are pretty happy with the functionality of the bot.

This is post is to present you what we found about MTGO v4 and ML Bot v4 and where we are headed. For those who don't know, v4 will be released on July (here: http://community.wizards.com/content/blog/4083351 ).


First of all, the bot and surprisingly the beta client were very stable and we reported no unexpected crashes, there were a few minor issues and speed needs to improve, but these are easy fixes. This was our first serious test with v4 and we are happy to say that ML was excellent - we could even release it today and everyone will have a stable and efficient bot. ML Bot for v4 has the same functionalities of v3, with a very similar user interface. You will get used in no time.

Our goal for the next 2 months is to further develop the bot and have an updated, easy to use and fully functional v4 bot by July 1, 2014, this is when we will start open beta testing. The Beta client will go live on Mtgo mid July, not only will we be ready but we will have the best bot, with the best feature to the open public that follows the guidelines of WOTC.

Get excited, new great things are coming to ML Bot soon.

Happy Botting,
Jason - Teamstoge

MTGO Library Bot 6.87

ML Bot 6.87 has just been released, supporting Journey Into the Nyx (JOU).

As usual the updated pricelist is available for download on the Online Control Panel or for free during the update process. The Lite bots should update too because the pricelist make them capable of handling JOU.

Wizards have given me two days off

During the wide beta spotlight, my bots don't work and I can't play on the client I don't really love, but can at least live with.

This is what happened last time I tried your Wide Beta client, Wizards:

You said I would be forced to switch in July 2013.
You said Leagues would be back in 2011.
You said an awful lot of things that did not come true.

Get your act together. You have the best game in the world with the worst client(s) in the world. Just get your act together. Don't let Blizzard steal your market.

You will have to drag me kicking and screaming from v3, even though I don't really like it and it looks like it is from 1993. At least it works.

This two day break will give me plenty of time to play some Hearthstone and do all the chores I have neglected. Thank you for that, Wizards.

What is the Wide Beta spotlight, you ask? Well, it is Wizards forcing us to endure yet another forced buggy beta test. I will not. Not again. I am out. See you after this travesty.

Read more here:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/04142014/betaupdate

Journey into Nyx: combat tricks

Surprises are not welcomed during a draft. It is good to know your enemy and in this case it is an unexpected card. You should be conscious of risk and be able to predict what your opponent may be holding on his hand. To this end, I've prepared a list of cards that do some combat tricks.

White: Ajani's Presence, Decide, Reprisal, Phalanx Formation
Blue: Aeriel Formation, Kiora's Dismissal, Hubris, Hour of Need, Polymorphous Rush
Black: Cruel Feeding, Feast of Dreams, Nightmarish End, Ritual of the Returned, Silence the Believers
Red: Magma Spray, Rouse the Mob, Riddle the Lightning, Starfall
Green: Nature's Panoply, Setessan Tactics, Solidarity of Heroes, Colossal Heroics, Consign to Dust
Multi: Dictate of Heliod, Dictate of Kruphix, Dictate of Erebos, Dictate of Twin Gods, Dictate of Karametra, Fleefeather Cockatrice, Cloaked Siren

The Modern Noob update

The Modern Noob is my series about learning Modern. It has been going on since October and is scheduled to end with me choosing a deck to play in a Premier Event in the first week of June (June 2nd-6th).

Learn more about the Modern Noob here: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/04/the-modern-noob-finale.html

Statistics update
Soul Sisters 41-11 (79%)
Tron 5-4 (56%)
Goblins 10-7 (59%)

Deck Lists: 
Soul Sisters http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2013/11/decks-of-modern-noob-soul-sisters.html
Tron: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/03/a-new-deck-for-modern-noob.html
Goblins: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/01/decks-of-modern-noob.html

Recent Matches

Soul Sisters vs Merfolk

Tron vs Green Devotion Tooth & Nail

The Modern Noob on mtgolibrary
I will report on my progress in The Modern Noob every Sunday here on mtgolibrary until June 8th, when I will report how the Premier Event did and then sell all my Modern cards when they peak like crazy during Modern PTQ Season. I will start playing the format again in September after rebuying everything I need.

The full play list
If you want to see all the crazy decks I have tried and how it went, check out The Modern Noob Season 1 playlist here:

MTGO Library Bot 6.86

ML Bot 6.86 has just been released. We worked again on the AutoTransfer modes and fixed some minor problems that caused the bot to skip some cards in the "Balance" and "Refill" modes (and never transfer them)

MTGO Library Bot 6.85

ML Bot 6.85 is a minor update fixing a problem with the AutoTransfer of boosters. The picking of the boosters was not working correctly and so the bots were unable to transfer all the boosters they needed.