Our plans for the switchover

So, we are finally there. Mtgo v3 will be switched off 16th July and Mtgo v4 will become the only client for Magic Online.You can read the full announcement from Wizards here: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-online-v3-date-and-new-client-update-2014-06-26

Mtgo v3 served us well during the years, but now it's time to move to Mtgo v4! What will you need to do that? First of all, please note that v4 won't work on Windows XP: Wizards infact decided not to support xp:

"One of the decisions we recently made that will help us deliver a better and more performant user experience is the elimination of support for Windows XP at our minimum spec level. Like Microsoft, we have decided to discontinue support for the nearly 13-year-old OS in order to make better use of the upgrades provided by more recent operating systems."

You will then need our new bot for Mtgo v4 (that will be release starting next week) and you will need some more RAM: mtgo v4 uses more ram than v4 and it is computationally more demanding, hence you'll probably need to upgrade your machines a bit. Please install Mtgo v4 on your machine and all that comes with it (NET 4.0 and WPF).

We expect the market to slow down a bit, more or less like what happend with the switch from v2 to v3, but this will recover in a couple of weeks.

The new MTGO v4

Two days ago Wizards of the Coast released an update for Mtgo v4. The update mainly addressed the  trading interface, changing old features and adding new ones. You can read the full article here: http://community.wizards.com/content/blog/4102121

We are happy with this update - this is probably one of few updates that really improves the trading system and that will benefit traders. The v4 trading system is now very close to the v3 one. We had to change some things our v4 bot to adapt it to the new interface but this is a work we were happy to do.

Among the most notable changes, the new mtgo v4 introduces the good old wishlist: you can now load a .dek file and mtgo will automatically grab the cards for you. The chat is now automatically docked to the right and, in case you lose it, you can simply click the "Chat" button on the bottom-right. Finally, the trading interface is in a new windows: this means that you can access the Classified Boards while trading and change your BUSY / OPEN message easily.

Here at mtgolibrary we think that the update was much overdue and we are happy it has been delivered. Our faith in mtgo v4 is now a little higher!

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.