Botting 101

As we resume our series on your first bot, let’s look at some of the reasons why a person would choose to let their first bot be a PRO bot.

• I play contracted events and do not want to pay `retail’ prices for cards which I use.
• I want to offer a greater inventory than what LITE or bulk bots typically offer.
• I want to be able to trade `chase’ cards.
• I wish to maximize my profits immediately and am willing to work for it.

As I mentioned previously, the same principles that govern computer usage when using a LITE bot also applies to a PRO bot.  No Skype, torrents, instant messaging, or anything which might pop up a window which could then interfere with the bot.

Do you have any special advice for those who wish to have their first bot be a PRO bot?

Make certain that your bot will be run 24/7.  Part-time PRO bots tend to fare poorly.

Make certain that you have a plentiful amount of tickets.  Why?  When one’s first bot is a LITE bot, you can effectively control how many available tickets you have.  If one has a PRO bot, it is very possible that some expensive cards come in and eat up your available liquid currency.  Let me give an example.

When Jace Beleren was in its prime, it was going for 40 tickets, give or take a few.  If one neglected to note this fact and set their bot to grab 4 of each card; one could have 175 tickets, and lose 160 of them in just 4 cards!  (Note: you’ve not lost money.  You will make a profit once the cards sell.  What you’ve lost is liquidity, not money.  I‘ll explain that in a future series.)

For this reason, I would recommend starting out with a LITE bot to build up an inventory.  However, if one already has a collection, then starting out with a PRO bot is acceptable.

Spoilers and the Market

Many Magic the Gathering Stores and Magic Online bot owners pay very close attention to the next set spoilers. This does not happen due to curiosity of any all-new cards coming out but because of possible reprints.








Spoiling a reprint as a immediate impact on the price of older versions and promotional versions of that card, an example of that can be Doom Blade getting reprinted in M14, this causes an instant demand in full art promotional versions of that card which will obviously only go up in price. Because the Promo Doom Blade price wasn't the highest even during the M12, this is not the best example, but if a card such as Mana Leak does get reprinted, the foil promotional versions will hit a massive price rise.

Remember to keep an eye on spoilers!

Time management, part 3

4. Every time you do some time-wasting thing, do five squats. Yes, this is not a joke. Checking the e-mail box for the 8th time? 5 squats. Aimless chcecking facebook? 5 squats. The benefits of this rather controversial method are twofold. Firstly, you will realize how often you do it. Your increased awareness of the habitual breaks in the work will greatly help you to give up the bad habits. You'll be surprised how much time you waste everyday. Secondly, the physical movement provides your body faster circulation what means more oxygen pumped into your brain, resulting in higher motivation and better concentration during further work.

5. Get a stopwatch and use it throughout the day. Specify how long you want to spend on every task. Turn the timer on and stick to the plan. Listing the time of each task on a regular basis, just before the activity. Take into consideration the activities associated with the waste of time. Think how much time you are planning to spend browsing the funny pictures on the internet and then start the timer. This hint will teach you to control the current passing time in the course of the work. It is the final brick for your expert time management skills.

Do not take up all these challenges at once, otherwise your inner critic will call you insane. I suggest here the philosophy of small steps and careful observation of your reactions and behavior. These experiences will teach you a lot, so carry a piece of paper - important discoveries like to be saved.

BestDeal Clan

In 20 months of running the BestDeal Clan we have now won a total of over 200.000 packs in MTGO Events. This is a big achievement which reward us the 4th place on top5 Clans. We are currently aiming to reach the third place within 2 months and second place within 6 months.

How did you get there? Aren't clans useless in MTGO?
The MTGO Client itself does not offer many "clan features" apart from a channel where we can all chat. In the recent days, a new member of the clan has been helping me improve the community feeling of the clan; we have now a ventrilo and soon will have a more complete website (with forums, videos, streams, etc) rather than just the BestDeal's store.
In terms of business we offer a few "services" to clan members. We will match any better offer from other bot (higher buying price or lower selling price), so our members don't require to spread credits all over the competition, we offer clan discounts on the BestDeal's store and plenty of advice to new drafters on how to maximize profits or minimize losses while playing competitively.

A considerate portion of my bots Customers are clan members and that's one of the many reasons for my success. Do you have any of yours to share?

What is this VMware anyway?

I wish to pause at this point in our series on your first bot to address something which has been mentioned in the comments: VMware.  But first, let’s get the introductions out of the way:

What is VMware? 

VMware is a company which specializes in virtualization.  What’s that?  They solve a problem that businesses encounter, and does it in a way which is more reliable and less expensive.  Many businesses have a dedicated computer which does only a few tasks and typically runs custom-made software.  Let’s give an example:

A dentist’s office could have one computer which is dedicated solely to maintaining the schedule and another computer to handle insurance billing.  This computer could queue the invoices and send them out once a day.

So what is the problem?  What if this core computer’s hardware fails and one can not find the installation disks?  What if the company which provides the software declares bankruptcy?  (Don’t laugh, I’ve seen this dozens of times.  Businesses love stability and will continue using ‘obsolete‘ software for years after its publisher’s demise.)  Such a disaster could be catastrophic.  So VMWare has developed a program which will take a snapshot of an entire computer’s ecosystem and save it as a file, which can then be run on other hardware.  Viola,  problem is solved.  You have a backup.  You do not have to worry about losing installation disks or be held hostage by a custom program.

Professional botters use VMware’s products to run multiple bots on a dedicated computer.  I run two (2) bots on the same machine my wife uses in her everyday tasks.  I use VMware to separate my personal laptop from work programs which I am required to run as past of my day job.  In short, VMware makes excellent products and most, if not all, botters swear by it.

If it is so good, then why did you fail to mention it?

VMware’s products are not like your typical program or game where you just install and run.  You need to have some technical know-how and there is a learning curve.  If you cringe at the thought of installing Windows, imagine installing Windows under Windows.  (Yes, I know it is easier to install Windows under VMWare than Windows directly.) 

If one is thinking about getting their first bot, this project could be more daunting than installing and configuring the bot itself.  This is why I did not include VMware as part of Botting 101.  This is more a Botting 201 topic.  Speaking of which, I will resume Botting 101 next time unless comments dictate otherwise.

Passionate.

We are often told we need to be passionate about our work, our company or the product we are selling. And while it is true, it is also a little bit ephemeral.

Today I heard a better way to describe this:

Transfer our enthusiasm. 

 I love it, and I’m going to use it as a way to judge myself after I present an idea or project to people in the future.

Dealing with new sets, a lost cause?

Are new sets too risky to deal with?

Anyone that has been using MTGO Bots for a while has surely experienced that, many times, dealing with new sets can be stressful and quite tricky. Too often we bought a card worth $8 for just 6 Tix thinking we were "playing safe" to find out , a few hours later, that this same card was now worth $3 and we didn't sell it. I will try to my best explain this phenomena with all the questions and answers you might have about it.

Why does card value drop so quickly?

I could throw the old "Supply vs Demand" theory but on set releases is a little bit more complex than that. Although we start with a supply of 0 (zero), we will also have "humans" that are eager to try the new cards, and are up to pay twice or more of what a card is likely to be worth after one week which explains the high starting price.

The amount of cards generated in the pre-release events is huge, This has a much bigger impact in price drops than in paper Magic: the Gathering, not just because of how many copies of a certain card come out, but also, because how easily MTGO allows these cards to be traded.

Why does no one sell the new cards to my bot?

More than in any other time in MTGO, the number of "humans" dealing is very respectable, and while we leave a bot running for a few hours on the same prices, humans adjust their prices every 10/15 minutes. This is likely to be the only time where most humans in fact offer better deals than most bots, because these, tend to play a bit more safe with new sets.

What should I do then?

There are a few options:

• Don't buy the new set for the first couple of days and let the market calm down
• Buy it low enough to allow you undercutting humans and sell quickly
• Buy only bulk with Lite bots on the first days (so you wont be buying junk uncommons for 0.200 a piece) so when you start fully buying the set, you only need the few expensive rares.

My Choice was a mixture between the second and third, yet there was a few trades where I've ended up in loss (few hours without updating prices is all it takes).

Feel free to add your feelings and strategies on how to deal with new sets in the comment section below.

mtggoldfish.com

Today I discovered and interesting website, tracking prices over time:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/

I really like it, it features historical data back to April/May 2012 for almost every valuable card. You can clearly view trends and adjust your prices according to.

Definitely something I will use.

Time management, part 2

Another set of tips:

2. Plan your day down to the minute. Write on a piece of paper every action that you going to perform tomorrow in the morning. Go ahead and note down even such thing as a morning visit in the toilet or taking out the trash - the point is to teach your mind to organize your time in a very detailed way. Go through the day with a ready plan and mark the done things on your check list. In the evening, carefully review the entire plan of the day and draw a conclusion. Prepare similar plan for the next day. Repeat it for three consecutive days. Then do the same, but this time without the paper and only in your imagination. Omit minor details, such as brushing your teeth in the morning or making sandwiches. Now, focus only on the most important tasks of the coming day.

3. During the day create on a regular basis the brief but specific visualizations of coming hours. Regardless of whether you have the time already planned on paper or not, just close your eyes and imagine yourself performing any further action over the next 3 - 5 hours. It really enhances the ability to manage time and the organization of your work. After a while it becomes a habit and a part of your internal system operation. Initially, dedicate more time for visualizations (about 15 seconds per activity), but as the time goes on organizing the tasks in your timeline will require just a while.

Soon two tips more!

Do not give up

We live in a "startup" world.
We are bombed with news about Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook and Android... all growing at embarassing rates and earning millions of dollars. This is ok but... it's not the real world. It's a tiny lucky fraction.

For the rest of the world (and for the rest of the world I mean: "everyone", 99.9999999% of the persons) working hard and staying at it is foundamental. The good part is that you can easily avoid failure, especially when botting: do not give up after 3 weeks, don't get discouraged, insist, iterate and learn from your errors. Stay up late at night, prepare yourself a good coffee, wake up early in the morning.

If you want to be successful, get ready for a lot of long days followed by long nights. I really like the mantra from Jason Fried and 37 Signals. He has a smallish company, 20 or so people that profits Millions per year, and that’s my goal for my companies, but here’s one thing I just found out about how to get there… Stay at it: everyday you continue to build things, the closer you get to a kick-ass, super-profitable business empire.

Everyone loves Discounts!

CLEARANCE SALES

May 1, also known as the International Workers' Day, is a Bank Holiday in over 80 Countries.

In 2012, a Portuguese Supermarket decided that for that day only, everyone with a shopping basket of over €100 would get a 50% discount (on top of any current discounts/promotions) .
This caused total chaos across the whole country resulting in fights over items on shelves (and own trolleys), police interventions and the struggle to fit it all into the cars, just to turn around and go back inside get more. Aside from all the accusations of dumping, this supermarket got away with it, as the investigation found out that only 2 items were sold for a minimal loss.

Although it doesnt seem relevant to us, this is a great reminder that consumers love discounts. What we can learn from this is that sometimes we can change the tactics, sacrifice part of the stock(or profit) and undercut every other bot, (announcing it as a clearance/promotion), resulting in a massive influx of Event Tickets but more importantly, Customers! Even if this process results in some loss, part of those new Customers will be back even when your prices normalize, which maximizes long-run profits.

A great story

Two days ago I talked to a customer of mine. It was the first time I had a conversation with him. This person run 4 bots.

I cannot tell you the name and give you the exact numbers, but the substance does not change.
He shared with me his financial spreadsheets, with monthly reports. He started one year ago and he does incredibly well. With just 4 bots he is able to extract a net profit of more than 750 usd/month, real money, in his bank account.
While this person is not the most profitable one (he is half way up the ladder), he just run 4 bots compared to the usual 15-20 of top botters. As time passes, he will add bots and he will surely become of the biggest chain.

What he didn't tell is how he made it (of course). I guess passion, good prices, great inventory, some collections bought on eBay, tixs on the accounts.

How to look for boosters on Wikiprice

Recently we added the possibility to look for boosters on wikiprice.

You just have to write (for example) "Gatecrash Booster" in the input text field and choose no set from the dropdown menu (see image).

Just make sure the name of the booster is complete and full, exactly as it is in the file CardsMTGO3.txt.

Some examples:

Return to Ravnica Booster
Magic 2013 Booster
Innistrad Booster
Urza's Destiny Booster

MTGO Library Bot 5.78 has been released

A minor improvement over 5.77, ML Bot 5.78 adds the DGM CatID to the wishlist buying mode

Tweaked wikiprice

Today we found a minor bug on wikiprices that caused less frequent updates for some bots. The bug has already been fixed and the benefits will be visible in 24 hours.

Please look for your bots on wikiprice tomorrow and write us if they are not listed.


Thank you,

Albert
staff@mtgolibrary.com

Botting 101 - LITE - (Part 2 of 2)

During this series designed for those who are not yet running Library, I asked a question: Why do you wish to run a bot?  Last time I listed some possible answers and said that those fitting that profile should consider a LITE bot.  I also gave some basic advice.  Today, we’ll give some additional and not obvious advice.

• More than likely, you are going to be running LITE Library part time, not 24/7.  List the times when you expect the bot to be active.  This is to give your customers a sense of confidence that you are not here today and gone tomorrow and not to panic when your bot is not on their buddy list.
• Get an email address for your bot solely for customer interaction.
• Create a simple website for your bot.  There are plenty of free website hosting options available these days.
• Create a clean price structure.

The clean price structure is an important point.  By a clean price structure, I mean something nice and simple: 4 or 5 cards for a ticket.  Could be 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12 or 25 cards.  This makes it easy for customers to make one transaction and have no left over credits.   For new bots this helps give a measure of consistency.  For part time bots, this allows those customers who do not wish to keep a mental note of which bots have credits.  This allows for a better customer experience and that is something all of us should aspire to.

The MTGO Shuffler

One of the most common complaints about Magic: The Gathering Online is that the automated shuffler appears to yield different results than a player hand shuffling their paper deck. There are numerous reasons why there may be a stark difference between your own shuffling and the shuffling performed by a computer. Allow me to explain in some degree of depth why this is.

What is the official definition of shuffling in Magic: The Gathering?

701.16a - To shuffle a library or a face-down pile of cards, randomize the cards within it so that no player knows their order. (From the comprehensive rules) found here.

How close is MTGO to a random shuffle?

While it is true that a computer can obtain ‘true’ random at great lengths, the MTGO shuffler is not true random. However to shuffle one does not need to obtain ‘true’ random. As has been defined a shuffle merely needs to randomize the cards within the deck so that no player may know their order.

If you enter a game on MTGO you, nor your opponent, will have any way of knowing what your opening hand will yield. You may have an average hand, flooded with lands, lacking a single land, or even open with a ‘god hand’(The most optimal hand a deck could start with). This is known as being “sufficiently” random. A player may never know what his opening hand is going to be because any pattern is not within the ability of human perception to observe.

How close am I to a random shuffle?

The simple answer is that you likely aren’t. Outside of the realm of possibility that you are intentionally or unintentionally mana weaving (stacking the deck so that after an inadequate shuffle you will draw a land every third card) most forms of human shuffling are considered weak at best. This is why casinos implement automated shuffling procedures. Humans just can’t be depended on to sufficiently randomize a deck of cards.

If you’re interested in testing how well you shuffle you may learn to do so in this article by author Michael A. Rutter. 

Why do so many people think the shuffler is broken?

-They don’t know how to mulligan effectively, blaming bad decisions on the shuffler

-They didn’t design their deck to sufficiently fill their mana needs or didn’t plan for the inevitable lack or flood of mana

-Their online shuffler experience doesn’t match up to their paper shuffling, more often than naught this is because they fail to shuffle sufficiently themselves.

-People remember disruption more vividly than they do success. (An opening hand of 7 lands will be more memorable than an average hand of 2 or 3 lands)

-They see other people complaining about the shuffler frequently so it must be broken right? People complain when something goes wrong, for every person complaining about an opening hand there are many more that played a game successfully and had no reason to complain about the shuffler.

What is the verdict?

Many people believe that a random distribution means an even distribution of cards. A randomly shuffled deck will have natural clustering of cards which will not live up to the ideal of an evenly distributed deck. The online shuffler is sufficient in that it complies with all the rules required of a shuffle. MTGO is very much a game of ‘luck of the draw’ but improved deck design and mulligan judgments can minimize the extremely unfortunate opening hands that are an inevitable part of the game.

Perhaps in the future R&D will invest time and thought into cards that will serve to help players improve their opening hands, but for now we must remember that even a great deck will lose to luck of the draw!

Time management, part 1

Time is a subjective phenomenon, and your brain has the ability to manage perception of this phenomenon. Therefore, time management skills are primarily relevant thinking strategies. The methods presented below are not complicated, but sometimes requires dedication and commitment from you. With the following exercises, you will get an extra at least 7 hours a week, so no more excuses that you do not have time for this or that. Think of it as an investment in one of the most important in our lives currencies.
"Time is money" - a popular, silly saying. Time is not money, time is your life!

Quite important note - the methods are rather one-off experience, not your new habits. Use it for a short time (one to several days), and then set it aside.

1. Provide yourself an extreme conditions. Start a new, additional projects or set new goals to achieve. Give yourself a short time to perform these tasks what leads to a situation in which you will have a lot of things on your mind and almost no time. If you have no idea of ​​the extra activities, just arrange for someone a surprise party, plan a weekend or perform a task from the list of things to do for the next month. It will not be the most pleasant experience in your life, but believe me, in these conditions, time management quickly gets into your blood. The development of these skills is in fact a natural response to the situation. Therefore, even if you are groaning and whining, focus your attention and organize yourself in this mess.

Soon next tips!

Quick update on ML Bot for Magic Online v4

Time has come to share some thoughts about ML Bot for Magic Online v4.

We started the development in September 2012. I remember that the Magic Online v4 client was horrible, slow and crashing every 10 minutes. The situation now is much better and the MTGO v4 client is "usable" - we managed to build a reliable bot on.

In general I am satisfied with the work done so far: the new bot is stable, better coded, smaller and faster than the current one (the one for v3).

We are now in a position where the bottleneck is the Magic Online client. Just to give an example, the new bot is able to read 25 cards from the "You Give" column in 200 ms. 200 ms means "real time" (it's 5x faster than the current bot) - as soon as the customer picks a card, the bot quotes. But...... if you try to input text in the chat, 99% of the times Magic Online v4 freezes. You can prevent this by breaking the text in small chunks.
In a nutshell, you can read the cards in 200 ms, but then have to wait 1 second for the chat to actually send the messages. At the opposite, v3 chat supports heavy text without any problem. I guess time will fix this and similar issues.

The new bot is also better coded. Having good code under the hood means that the software is easier to debug, it's easier to add new features, easier to deploy and adjust.... it's more or less the same difference we had between the old website and the new one (the one we released on February / March).

What I expect for the future? On July ML Bot for Mtgo v4 will be a good product. With the months, it will become an excellent product and will greatly exceeded the current version.


Albert
staff@mtgolibrary.com

Botting 101 - Lite (Part 1 of 2)

Last time I gave a homework assignment to those readers who are pondering whether or not to start botting; asking why do you wish to run a bot.  Being brutally honest is required in order for this exercise to be effective.  Let’s look at some possible answers:

• I like to play MTGO but I can not afford the weekly draft.
• I prefer playing constructed or do not like playing limited and do not want to pay retail prices for cards.
• I want to get into botting but have limited computer resources.
• I draft a lot and spend too much time dumping cards onto bots.
• I want to test-drive the bot to see what is really required to get into botting.

I would recommend looking at a LITE bot for those who fit these profiles.  You can get away with using your primary computer running ML Bot while you are sleeping and otherwise not using your computer. 

One main advantage about doing this is if your computer meets the requirements for the bot, you should have few problems getting it up and running.  The only concern would be the screen resolution, which would typically mean ML Bot would not be able to run on a laptop.

Another major tip would be to turn off all other programs.  Exit Skype, torrents, browsers, email programs, instant messaging programs.  Basically, anything which is left running and can pop up a window can interfere with the bot.  Turning off all unnecessary programs will improve the bot’s performance.  I’ll give some more tips next time.

MTGO Library Bot 5.77 has been released

ML Bot 5.77 is now available, supporting the new set Dragon's Maze (DGM). The new pricelist is already available online and it's free during the update process.
Happy botting!

Postponed Spotlight

 Hello fellow botters,


The spotlight has been cancelled! I am very surprised, they upset so many people with the spotlight then they postpone it? hum... I am not going to get into that, but if you would like to read details on the spotlight cancellation you can, click here.


I am really writing this blog to thank all of our Mv4 bot beta testers, Yes we were all ready and then they.... Cancelled. The good news is we got a ton of great feedback and suggestions from everyone involved and that is more important.

So thank you everyone and I hope everyone is getting ready for a very profitable month with the release of Dragon Maze tomorrow.


Teamstoge

Jason@mtgolibrary.com

Magic Online v3 will be down May 8th - May 10th

As you probably already know, Magic Online v3 will be down May 8th - May 10th for the so called "V4 spotlight".
Magic Online v4 will be live on July and mtgolibrary.com will not miss the chance to be the first bot there!

During the spotlight we will have some bots running, thanks to our beta testers. I expect many bugs to be fixed on the fly and a generalized slow behavior.... after all Magic Online v4 IS slow and every action there is problematic.
Anyhow, we managed to build a bot for V4 and all the team here is pretty excited about that!

Finger crossed for tomorrow!


Albert
staff@mtgolibrary.com

Building Customer Confidence

Building confidence with customers is simple and productive part of operating a business. When a potential customer is confident they are dealing with a reputable company they are much more likely to make a purchase. There are many ways to increase a customers confidence in your brand but one of the easiest methods is to make yourself available to a customer and provide them with as much information about your business as you can. Here are a few thoughts to consider while you initiate or update your botting business.

Email

Perhaps the most important thing you can do to improve your relationship and trust with customers is to provide an email address for them to contact you if they need assistance with your bot. You can use any free service to operate an email address for your bot and it takes only moments each day to check.

Website

There are many free website services that you can use as a base of operations for your botting chain. There are also paid services if you can spare the money for a domain and hosting. A website is a great place to include additional information on your business and any activities your business is participating in(Prizes, events, products, etc). A bot with a website will draw more trust and interest than a bot without a website because of its professional appearance and availability of information. 

Brick and Mortar Location

While this is certainly not necessary for many online businesses some people are more willing to trust a company if they make openly available that they have a brick and mortar location where an individual could meet in person. If you run a Ma and Pa card shop be sure to let your MTGO customers know that! It shows that you have an investment in your business and wont just disappear in the middle of the night.

Phone Number

People like to meet in person before they make a large purchase, the next best thing to meeting is to hear a humans voice on the phone. If you are comfortable with the occasional phone call from an angry, concerned or excited customer then you may wish to explore this option. It lends a great deal of credibility to what you are doing if you make yourself personally available to customers.

How to draft Dragon's Maze?

The Dragon's Maze set features 166 cards. Prerelease events are going to start May, 9. The new set brings new cards and new loves. With DGM 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 commons and uncommons worth drafting in Gatecrash. I ignored rares and mythic cards, because these cards are quite easy to evaluate and to point out the best possible pick. 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. Here we go:

• White: Sunspire Gatekeepers
• Blue: Runner's Bane, Opal Lake Gatekeeper
• Black: Fatal Fumes, Ubul Sar Gatekeepers
• Red: Punish the Enemy, Rubblebelt Maaka, Weapon Surge
• Green: Battering Krasis
• Multicolor: Morgue Burst, Tithe Drinker, Viashino Firstblade, Zhur-Taa Druid, Beetleform Mage, Alive/Well, Ascended Lawmage, Blast of Genius, Blaze Commando, Carnage Gladiator, Far/Away, Fluxcharger, Gruul War Chant, Haunter of Nightveil, Korozda Gorgon, Krasis Incubation, Putrefy, Rot Farm Skeleton, Scab-Clan Giant, Species Gorger, Spike Jester, Toil/Trouble, Turn/Burn, Unflinching Courage, Warleader's Helix, Warped Physique, Woodlot Crawler

Remember that DGM is drafted with RTR and GTC. Here you may find list of good commons and uncommons from these sets. RTR GTC

Good luck!

Percentage Corrections & Estimating Potential Profits (updated)

I am writing this post on James' behalf.
He made some updates based on user feedback and fixed a few minor things on his spreadsheet. 
You can download the revised version here.

Changes:

+ Prevented macro from hiding "CardsMTGO3" tab; folks use this as reference to enter prices into other tabs.

+ Made table on "corrections" tab (hidden) now go from +100% to -100%

+ Updated drop down menus to pull from new "correction" tab ranges


Thanks James!

Botting 101 (Part 1)

WARNING: This series of articles is designed for those who are not yet running MTGO Library.  So for those who are running seven and twelve bot chains in an architecture that is superior to some ISP‘s I have seen, please be patient.  I will resume heady topics next series.

So you’ve been debating whether or not to get into this bot business.  You’ve read this blog and are over-whelmed by some of the topics discussed here: version 4, how to maximize profits, how to manipulate the price list, and links to spreadsheets full of complicated formulae.  You wonder if you are going to somehow mess up.

You’ve read the manual and/or FAQ but are confused by some of the topics discussed therein.  What is meant by “family of bots”; credit sharing, and renting fee?  You wonder if the learning curve is steeper than an Advanced Calculus course.

You’ve seen the hundreds of existing bots on MTGO and wonder how you are ever going to even compete with all this competition.  This does not even broach these professional-looking bots which seem to always be busy, even though they take up the entire Classified screen.

Then this series is for you.  I’ll be addressing some of these questions, and more if you leave them in the comment field. 

But first, you have a homework assignment: you need to answer this question: Why do you wish to run a bot?  You need to be brutally honest.  Lying to yourself will not be helpful.  Your journey into this world begins next time.

Applications for ML Bot v4 Beta testers are closed

Hello,

first of all, thanks for all the application emails we received. Even if July is still 2+ months ahead, I found a lot of interest on ML Bot for mtgo v4.

Applications are now closed because we reached the number of beta testers we needed. The testers have already received an email. They will receive a second email with detailed instruction May 7th.


Thank you!
Albert
staff@mtgolibrary.com

Mtgo Library Going Social.

Hello fellow botters,

Mtgo Library has gone social!
There has been much hesitation on this matter but we finally saw more pluses then minuses. We feel that all us botters are like a family helping one another down the road to success, so we decided to use Facebook as one of our community's side by side with our Blog to share these ideas.

If you like or subscibe to our page:

• You can be entered in to current and future contest/promotions we may be having
• Discuss strategies with other botters
• Leave suggestions or recommendations in regards to ML Bot
• Receive peer to peer help with issues you maybe be having
• more!

We will be holding our first contest/promotion starting 5/1 and ending 7/1. We will need all everyone's help in the community on this one. We have set a goal of reaching 1000 likes on our new Facebook page by 7/1, if we complete this goal then 5 lucky people who liked our page will receive 2 month pro license for one of their bots ($130 value).

Please everyone like our page and invite your friends, it could be you that wins the free 2 months. Our page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/mtgolibrary

Keep in mind the page is new, help us build it.


Happy Botting! 
Teamstoge 
Jason@mtgolibrary.com