Sunday, November 30, 2014

Changes in StarCityGames tournaments

Changes in Open Series tournaments organized by StarCityGames enter into force on December, 13. From now on, SCG Open is going to be a two-day event, held in one format. The significant change is that, the main event only will be streamed. In other words, we are loosing the weekly Legacy coverage, which many players enjoyed.

On Sunday, players may participate in 2 Premier Invitational Qualifiers, which will be held in other format than the main event was. However, IQ prize pool is only 5000 USD. In addition to fact that 14 out of the first 19 Opens of 2015 are Standard, 3 are Legacy, and 2 are Modern it is terrible news for Legacy players, which used to have more events with considerable prize structure. To sum up, the rank of Legacy events drastically fall. 

What does it mean to us? Simply put, we may face lesser demand on Legacy cards if there will not be any action taken to keep this format alive.

Magic Online Economic Holidays

Hi Everyone!



This week in the United States was Thanksgiving. It's one of the biggest travel days of the year, in fact, it took me 5 times longer to get 3 miles from my house than usual on Wednesday night, presumably because of the "holiday weekend" traffic.

What does this have to with Magic Online? It has to do with the fact that every major holiday triggers a downward trend in Magic Online Prices. I was checking Khans of Tarkir prices earlier this week and noticed an upward trend, then this weekend checked again and found the prices slightly falling. The fall is most likely that people on Magic Online are celebrating the holiday.

This isn't the first time I saw this trend. The last time I saw it was at the Fourth of July. The only difference was that the drop in price was way more than this time. I don't know if it has to do with the summer being a holiday spent outdoor or if it's related to the set over this past summer being Vintage Masters, that had much less value to a lot of players because they couldn't play it in standard, and they couldn't redeem the set.

While the idea of economies taking a holiday is silly and doesn't happen, on and around holidays can be great times to collect cards you've been looking for.


Friday, November 28, 2014

MTGO Library Bot 8.87

With ML Bot 8.87 we made the autotransfer handshake more robust, especially in the case of  "give" commands (such as "Refill give cards" or "Balance give cards") that requires an active communication between bots.

We also set the autotransfer timeout to 5 minutes so the autotransfer trades will take maximum 5 minutes each.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Power_T looks at Five Color Green in Pauper

Background
Power_T is my magic mentor who built the deck UB Trinket Control and coached me to my run on the Pro Tour back in the day. 

Five Color Green is a very strange Pauper deck designed by Shyft4. It only works in the Pauper Gauntlet for some reason.  Original deck list: http://mtgostrat.com/2013/04/1984/

Power_T on Five Color Green
I received an email from the man. Here it is (my translation from Swedish): 

"I watched you play Five Color Green in the Pauper Gauntlet. I took that deck, rebuilt it, played a little, rebuilt it a little more, played a little more. It is not a competetive deck but it was very fun to play casually. The build is a work in progress and I can't really recommend anyone to play it, except for fun.

With 17 land you are mana screwed one-third of the time and - as you have so many mana sources - you are flooded another one-third of the time. The remaining one-third of the time you would think that the deck is flowing and is the perfect deck but a substantial part of those are games where you start mana screwed and then end up flooding.

OK, maybe it is not that bad."

Five Color Green 2.0
17 Land
15 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains

20 Creatures
4 Dream Stalker
4 Kor Skyfisher
4 Lone Missionary
4 Mulldrifter
1 Aura Gnarlid
3 Krosan Tusker

23 Spells
4 Wild Growth
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Abundant Growth
3 Reality Acid
2 Journey to Nowhere
2 Deep Analysis
2 Grim Harvest
2 Prophetic Prism

Sideboard
3 Hydroblast
3 Pyroblast
3 Electrickery
2 Gorilla Shaman
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Calming Verse
1 Reality Acid
1 Deep Analysis

Enjoy!



Special Buddies, online

We are proud to announce the new Special Buddies tool, available on the Online Control Panel. It works exactly as the one on the "client bot", but it is centralized and it is shared among your bots. The old tool on the client bot will not be supported anymore.

The new Special Buddy tool is not active yet: to ease the transition, it will be activated 3rd December. Before that date you need to migrate your special buddies online.




We hope you will enjoy the new tool. Having it online means that you can easily adjust the prices on your smartphone even when not in front of the pc!

Magic Online economy speeding up?

Hi Everyone!

One of my most valuable tools when making decisions about Magic Online is to review prices over time.

When I look at the data and find a conclusion that fits with the data, I find that many decisions turn out similar to similar decisions about different sets. I also find that making predictions for lots of sets over a long period of time makes it easy to compare data and make assumptions using a time series.
A time series is Just the "average" of something with weight applied to the most recent events (Weather companies use it as data in their formula when determining the high and low temperatures).

 I noticed recently (especially M15 and now to a lesser degree Khans of Tarkir assuming Khans has begun it's upward swing) that the low point of set prices seems to happen sooner than before. In the past it was 60 to 75 days from release. It's only been about 45 days from Khans release. 20-25% of the original 60-75 days is statistically significant.

I'm going to look at the new sets as they come out and see what happens to confirm or debunk this observation as real. Until new sets come out to try this on, I'm going to look at the factors that could be causing the increase in speed. I think knowing what behaviors cause things to happen does more than give an interesting fact to impress your friends with, it helps you to understand the factors that impact the Magic Online economy and allow you to truly understand why certain things happen in the economy.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

MTGO Library Bot 8.85 and 8.86

Yesterday and today we released two updates, ML Bot 8.85 and 8.86.

These two updates contain some small fixes. An important fix that should be mentioned is that PersonalPrices.txt is now fully case-insensitive.
The following line was not valid in previous version, while now it is valid.

ktk;wooded foothills;4.370;11.500;2.670;2.411;5;2

Please note that you can write "ktk" instead of "KTK" and "wooded foothills" instead of "Wooded Foothills"

Sunday, November 23, 2014

MTGO Library Bot 8.84

With ML Bot 8.84 we introduced the much-awaited "at mode" working with tickets, the "attixs".
It is a mode that will make your bot get your tickets. We also sligthly changed the way an administrator is greeted and now the bots gives more informative messages.



Boats full of gold and Modern!!!

Hi Everyone!

As you all know, Khans of Tarkir held two cards in addition to fetch lands that are new and exciting for eternal formats, specifically Modern. Dig through time and Treasure cruise. Dig is the better option for combo decks looking for specific cards, and Cruise being the better choice for pure card advantage.

A lot of people think Treasure cruise is likely to be banned in modern because it basically says Threshold - sorcery speed Ancestral Recall (FYI, it doesn't actually say that and it's pretty inaccurate at that, yes it's good, but not that good).

Right now we are just starting the Fate Reforged PTQ season so very soon prices of Modern staples will be rising, that's nothing we all don't know already.

The reason for all the Treasure Cruise and Dig Through time talk is that everyone was screaming that they are too good and will warp the format. I have some news though, there were 3 copies of Dig and 4 copies of Treasure Cruise (Two different decks) in the top 8 of GP Madrid. The deck with Treasure cruise also had 4 Tarmogoyf.

What does all this mean? It means that the format isn't warped, there was one delver deck in the top 8 (the deck that became "too good" with Cruise). I get a lot of questions about cards losing their effectiveness in a format. Remember Morphling? It used to be the best of the best, now it's unplayable in eternal formats.

The point I'm getting at is that I don't think the format will have such a shift that the old staples aren't going to be good anymore. I still think Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and Liliana are all still cards that will be relevant in Modern and I think they're safe to pick up at their current prices.

A trend I have already noticed on Magic Online is that a lot of decks specifically build to beat UR delver strategies. The deck choice is based on a good deck that is already known to beat any Delver or "tempo" strategy. I'm going to bet that the new delve cards will be around in Modern, but likely aren't going to warp the format.

My money is on all the Modern format staples from before and Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time are good but are greatly hyped. I think the hype will die and the format staples will return to near their previous prices.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Pauper Gauntlet: The Result of the Voteback

This week we had the Pauper Gauntlet Voteback. Read more about it here: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/11/the-pauper-gauntlet-voteback.html

A lot of people voted! Thank you for all your votes!


One vote: MBC, Elf Bomb, Delver, GruulKitty, Izzet Control, Tron, Pox, Zoo, Trinket
Two votes: Thunder Trees, Croca Jund
Three votes: Illusory Tricks, Love Train, Turbo Fog, UB Creatureless Control

This means that we have four decks that could win but we only have three spots in the Gauntlet for the voted back decks.

What to do? Well, we will have to randomly select three out of four decks that get to come back. This will happen in the podcast Standard Pauper Show episode 25. That show will air on Wednesday the 26th (I will mention the result in my Wednesday blog post here, but that post will have another subject as well) on youtube.com/magicgatheringstrat and somewhat later on itunes.

So which decks will come back? Will it be Illusory Tricks (#2 last year!), Love Train (Freed from the Real combo), Turbo Fog (mill and fog!) or UB Creatureless Control ("kill them all!") ?

Stay tuned!

Basic facts
What is the Pauper Gauntlet? 
http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-pauper-gauntlet.html

Full list of the 77 Pauper Gauntlet decks for the second season: 

The above link also contains information about how you can win free prizes (including an Elspeth, Sun's Champion and two foil Shocklands (paper) by watching the pauper Gauntlet

What will happen after the voteback?
77 decks entered the Gauntlet. 27+3 decks remain. Round 5 is single elimination in the Tournament Practice Room. Expect the bloodbath to continue. My estimate is that another 10ish decks will fall in round 5.

How can you follow the Pauper Gauntlet?
The twitter account @MagicGathStrat tweets whenever a video is uploaded to the two YouTube channels that feature the Gauntlet: MagicGatheringStrat and sngprop.

MtG in South Park episode!


A few days ago the latest episode of South Park was on TV. The episode is entitled 'Cock Magic' and it treats about our card game. I'm not going to say any other word and spoiler it. If you are keen to, you may watch it here.

MTGO Library Bot 8.83

With ML Bot 8.83 we fixed some bugs. In particular:


  • fixed a problem at the beginning of the trades causing the bot to withdraw if mtgo is slow.
  • fixed a problem causing empty classified messages to be displayed, with no card replacements.
  • opening trade with an autotransfer bot is now more reliable and does not paste the bot name in the Classified area. On previous versions this was caused by a misclick
  • added the message "type the corresponding number to remove a card" when a customer buys cards


Wikiprice maintenance 22/11/2014

Today we will work a bit on wikiprice (mtgowikiprice.com) and it could stay down and/or not functioning properly for some hours.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Control Panel v4 - Messages - Bot Manual

In the Messages section of the online Control Panel you can change your messages remotely via any web browser.Apply your changes to your bot, your chain, or all your bots.  Messages added from the web will sync with your bot every hour. You can add special characters to any messages field and syntaxes into the Classified message and busy messages.

Example
Special Characters can be found here:
Syntax Section: You can use any combination of the following syntaxes when creating your classified message.
#sell / buy#Display the selling price (or the buying price) and name of a randomly chosen card, when typed together with a slash  (#sell_buy_M) will display like this1.89/1.59
#THS#Setname (3 letters, Uppercase), force replacement in the specified set
#M/R/U/C #
Rarity, force replacement with an item of the specified rarity
#2digits/1digit#Displays the price in 1,2, or 3 decimal places Ex. 1.1,1.10,1.100
#Foil#Will Display a foil card.
#>0.7 / <0.3#Will display a card less than .7 or greater than .3 
#noprice#Will not display the price.
#noname#Will not display the card name.
#shortname#Shortname, display a short version of the name, for example only 'Brimaz'
#Tarmogoyf#  Cardname, replace with the specific cardname (must specify setname)
#PP#PersonalPrices.txt, force replacement with items contained only in PersonalPrices.txt
#CFA#CardsForAdvertisement.txt, force replacement with items contained only in CardsForAdvertisement.txt
#noseparator# 
This will  remove the  [sV] separator, otherwise each card will print
between each card syntax.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

What Binkabi really played in Madrid

In the end, my fellow Swede, Binkabi, changed his mind about what to play in Madrid.

Binkabi:  This was the deck I ended up playing in Madrid. Zombie Pod felt great until I tested alot of games against delver and concluded it to be a tad to slow.

I went with Jeskai since I have plenty of experience with the deck and asumed that it would be a decent choice against UR Delver and Burn. 

I finished with 5 wins, 1 draw and 2 loses and was eliminated in round 8. I'm pleased with the results, mainly because I had to play alot of strange and unusual decks. Not until round 7 I got to play against something that I had been preparing for, crucshing a UR Delver. 

In round 8 I played against UR Delver again, but this version played around 12 counterspells in the main and having a perfect answer all the time. Not much to do about it! 

I also played the Super Sunday Series, finishing 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 loses. I thought that maybe the players would be slightly worse here, but oh my, I was wrong. Every oneof my opponents told me about results like "last 2 top 8s in the PTQs" or "Well, I top 8 the last 2 Super Sunday Series"... Anyway, I had a blast there to and overall, my weeked was great! Decklist 4 Celestial Colonnade 3 hallowed Fountain 2 Steam Vents 2 Sacred Foundry 4 Flooded Strand 4 Scalding Tarn 2 Island 1 Plains 1 Mountain 2 Tectonic Edge 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Path to Exile 2 Spell Snare 4 Mana Leak 4 Lightning Helix 2 Snapcaster Mage 3 Kitchen Finks 3 Electrolyze 3 Cryptic Command 2 Restoration Angel 1 Ajani Vengeant 1 Batterskull 3 Dig Through Time Sideboard 2 Celestial Flare 2 Shadow of Doubt 1 Timely Reinforcements 1 Keranos, God of Storms 1 Batterskull 3 Wear // Tear 1 Counterflux 1 Path to Exile 2 Pyroclasm 1 Twisted Image

Deck tech video




Sample match against Delver


Control panel v4 - Blacklist - Bot manual


The blacklist can be used to stop customers from trading with your bot. When using this feature you must give the customer the opportunity to use their remaining credit before permanently banning them. Use this feature only under extreme circumstances. This feature can be found here on your online control panel.

 Type the Mtgo customer name you would like to add to the blacklist and press the plus sign. When that customer trades with your bot, the bot will cancel trade. 



That unexciting time that happens right about now

Hi Everyone!

As many of you know, I write about issues regarding the Magic Online economy and financial topics. One thing always strikes me as an interesting phenomenon that a lot less than should be take advantage of.

This phenomenon is the "dead time" on Magic Online. It's not actually dead. It's just the time after a set is released and all the hype dies down (like Khans) and there's not a ton going on that's exciting, save for a few Khans cards making the eternal formats either more accessible, or making certain decks more viable (delver and treasure cruise for example).

I don't know what everyone else does in these times, but I do two things. First, I buy standard legal cards. Khans hype is fading (if not completely gone already) and prices are really low. They aren't the lowest they will get, but still a reasonable time if you're planning on investing a significant amount of cards that will take some time to acquire. I for one am stocking up on Modern staples that didn't experience any glamor the weekend. I'm also stocking up on what I think will be good in future standard (It's completely speculative, but there's no such thing as a sure thing).

The second thing, I always talk about "growing your business". This is the time I look at formats that I'm very lightly, if at all, invested in and cherry pick the best deals. For example, right now it seems like Tarmogoyf is really low priced since the release of Khans. I think there are a variety of things causing this. One cause is obviously delve cards that have a perceived power level of about Ancestral Recall (while the delve cards are good, they're not Ancestral Recall or "Demonic Tutor for 2 cards"). I stocked up on 'goyfs. It's pure opinion, but I think the delve cards from Khans are here to stay, but 'goyf will go back up in price.

Until next time, don't buy any cards I wouldn't!




Sunday, November 16, 2014

Questions and Answers

Hi Everyone!

Recently, I received an email from a friend of mine. They asked when was the right time to buy cards from new sets for use in their eternal format decks (including Modern). He assumed the proper time was when the card rotates out of Standard.

This question intrigued me because it was interesting that there seems to be an assumption that cards are cheapest right after they rotate out of standard, that's a good rule of thumb, it's even a rule most of the time, but sometimes it's not.

Let's go way back and look at Abrupt Decay. If you look at the price today, it's more expensive than it ever was in standard (excluding a few short times the price fluctuated a lot from day to day toward the end of it's standard tenure). It did drop in price during the online Khans pre-release but wasn't out of standard yet.

The price fluctuates a lot, and if you have a look at at price over time for Abrupt Decay, you'll find one thing, the price goes up. I know it's easy to look back on and say earlier is the time to buy. I think taking a calculated risk is well worth it when it comes to cards to play with.

Playing with cards isn't like investing or "trading" cards. You want the card and you're going to keep it. What's the best approach? The best approach is to get the best price when you do buy the card (obviously).

The best time to buy cards is usually sooner (if you don't know, I have written several times about how we only provide you with ideas and theory to help you make better decisions, there aren't any "hard and fast" rules that will make you money). I say usually because when the set first comes out and the prices are highly inflated you don't want to buy. You also don't want to buy right after a big tournament where the card performed well.

Let's jump to our old friend Abrupt Decay again. It's a reactive card and isn't really "tournament winning" so it didn't really have any ridiculous jumps in price after putting up results. It also was $7 upon release, then dropped very quickly to $1. Then crept up over time and is now higher than it ever (pretty much) was while it was in Standard. This means the sooner the better, except when it first came out was good advice. The one other issue is that the card could be a flop and not be good in your eternal format deck, but that's the risk you take when buying cards to play with.

Good luck on your purchases! Remember, sooner is better, but not too soon, and that doesn't always apply if the card is no good.

Hasbro financial condition

Hasbro company is listed on the NASDAQ exchange (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations). By the end of 14.11.2014, the stock exchange valued shares of HAS at $54.02. As a public company, Hasbro gives quarterly earnings guidance on how they are doing financially and present their strategic direction on many of the core products they own. One of the Hasbro subsidiary is Wizards of the Coast. Therefore, it is worth examining in more detail the effectiveness of the measures they carry out. 

Financial condition:
- All seven franchise brands grew double-digits year-over-year, including Magic the Gathering.
- Basing on report, Magic the Gathering along with Monopoly has the largest impact to Hasbro's revenue. Concluding, MtG is strategic area for Hasbro and they should continue investing in it.
- The revenues and profitability is increasing.
- MtG is growing globally, operating profit in the U.S. and Canada increased 16% in the quarter.
- Hasbro is planning to invest in the digital platform through technology spend.

Magic is doing well and it won't die out, as some players regularly prophesy. Brand keeps on growing and any rules changes or even transmition to v4 didn't slow it down. Future of Magic the Gathering (Online) is bright.



Saturday, November 15, 2014

The Pauper Gauntlet voteback

The fourth round of the Pauper Gauntlet is over. Some decks did not make it. Its time for you to decide which decks deserve to come back.

The rules of the Voteback
You each get one vote - vote for the deck you want to come back
You must vote in the comments to this article
You only get one vote so no multi-accounting or anything like that. One vote per person.
You must vote before noon PST on Saturday the 22nd of November

The three (3) decks that get the most votes will reenter the Gauntlet in round 5, just as if they had not been eliminated (even if they lost in round 2),

The returning decks will be published in my article on Sunday the 23rd of November after which round 5 of the Pauper Gauntlet will start.




The decks that have lost
Losers from double elimination (R1+2): Pox, Deathtouch, Dumb Green Tron (3 decks)

Losers from round 3: Icy Hot Hottie, Illusory Tricks, Love Train, AzoriusKitty by ShaffaWaffa5, Mono Black Control,  1-Land-Spy, Allies, CawBlade, Cogs, Dimir Cipher Tricks, GruulKitty, GW Beatdown, Hobo Omelette, Glass Cannon Red, Izzet Splice and Burn, Metalcraft, Midnight Presence, Mono Green Devotion, Mono Red Kuldotha Tron, People of the Sun, Pesky Clerics, RG Madness, Rise of the Legionaire, Rot Wolf Control, Shock the Kitty, Slivers, Thunder Trees, Turbo Fog, UB Creatureless Control, WatchRites, White Hot Hottie (31 decks)

Losers from round 4: UB Trinket Control, Delver, BeastDown, Tron, Izzet Control, Croca Jund, Crypt Songs, Elf Bomb, Hexproof, Golgari Undead Dredge, Infect, Squawks to Plowshares, Squawk Rites, Thallid Bowel Control, UG Madness, Zoo. (16 decks)

All of the above decks are candidates to be voted back into the competition.

Deck lists can be found here: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/09/the-decks-of-pauper-gauntlet.html

That means 27 decks remain (I will not list them here because I do not want to confuse you. As three decks come back by this voteback we will play round 5 with 30 decks.

Its time to hear the plea of the 50 decks that want to come back!

1-Land-Spy: You know there is nothing funnier than seeing Dan trying to figure me out!
Allies: We are the allies! We are marching off to war! We can't do that unless we are voted back!
AzoriusKitty by ShaffaWaffa5: You know I deserve to be back. You know I can do better than this! Let the battle of the kittys continue!
BeastDown: You want to watch the beasts smash people again? That game I lost was a joke. How many mulligans was that? 200? Vote me back.
CawBlade: Lets party like we have Jace, the Mind Sculptor!
Cogs: I was made by Brennon, everyone's favorite bearded hippie! Vote me back!
Croca Jund: Jund in every format! You know Crocanura is Goyf! Let me prove it once again!
Crypt Songs: You want to hear those sweet songs of the damned once again, don't you?
Deathtouch: Death is fun!
Delver: I am the #1 deck in the format. I do not deserve this. Vote me back. Maybe Chris Weaver will even let me play Treasure Cruise if you do!
Dimir Cipher Tricks: You want to see Cipher again, don't you? Narrow mechanic, schmarrow mechanic! Vote me back!
Dumb Green Tron: Uh? Me smash!!!
Elf Bomb: Dan will sing "Elves, elves, playing with themselves" if you vote me back.
Flying Dinosaurs: Hey! I would have been voted back last year if we used these rules! Vote me in! What? I am not in the Gauntlet? Lets talk about this!
Glass Cannon Red: I feel I have at least five more turn 2 kills in me.
Golgari Undead Dredge: Zombies and Dredge! Does it get better than that?
GruulKitty: Everyone loves a kitty that is big and violent! Vote me back!
GW Beatdown: My creatures are better than that chaff that the other people are playing! Vote me back!
Hexproof: You know I would have drawn that Armadillo Cloak nine times out of ten in that match! Bring me back so I can prove that I can beat any aggro deck.
Hobo Omelette: If you don't vote me back, I guess I will stand here by my garbage can in the cold, freezing with no home. You can bring me inside again, letting me part of society. I will work so hard. I promise.
Icy Hot Hottie: I was the people's choice in 2013 and I want you to vote me back again! Pretty please?
Illusory Tricks: I am far better than second place and I am far better than this! Vote me back now! Bava will love you!
Infect: I feel kinda sick.
Izzet Control: Its not all about going on cruises and stuff. Sometimes you need to, you know, work hard too
Izzet Splice and Burn: Splice, then burn.
Love Train: If I come back, everyone will feel the loooove
Metalcraft: Deluxe submitted me. Only me. He was forced to submit that green mess. Vote me back!
Midnight Presence: You know Presence of Gond only works in a token deck as a reserve way to win. Vote me back so I can fight it out with Bant Presence, who is always fancy with all his protection and stuff. I have TOKENS! Lots of them! You can have one if you vote me back
Mono Black Control: I am the #1 deck in the format! What the h-l am I doing here? Vote me back now! Or I will resolve Gray Merchant on your mom!
Mono Green Devotion: Hey! Everyone wants to see me gain 12+ life! You want a jphsnake or three in the top ten, don't you?
Mono Red Kuldotha Tron: Dan misplayed me. You will not mistreat me. Vote me back!
People of the Sun: White Weenie Tokens is everywhere and I am that deck. You need me in the Pauper Gauntlet!
Pesky Clerics: People love Pestilence. You will vote me back.
Pink Pants: You know I am the best name for a Pauper deck! What? I don't even exists. Well, that's a bummer.
Pox: Look, I was built by Peyton and he sponsored this competition with TWO FOIL SHOCKLANDS for you guys! Bring me back!



RG Madness: Everyone knows I am the #1 madness deck and that Odyssey block was the best block ever! Vote me back!
Rise of the Legion: Dan can't even spell my name right. I deserve respect. Vote me back!
Rot Wolf Control: I refuse to be voted back. Screw you!
Shock the Kitty: Shock that kitty! Shock it! Watch it dance a merry little dance! SHOCK IT!
Slivers: I give up. Nobody wants me back.
Squawks to Plowshares: You want to see Mono White Control again. And Empyrial Armor! It is known.
SquawkRites: Lets see what I can do. We don't really know that yet, do we?
Thallid Bowl Control: You want to hear Dan pronounce my name once again, don't you?
Thunder Trees: What's that sound? Is the weather turning worse? Is it a horde of wild horses? No, its the THUNDER of the trees!
Tron: Avignon wrote the best Pauper article ever. That is worth something.
Turbo Fog: Died by misplay. That is unfair. Vote me back! I even turned Simic for you guys! I deserve this.
UB Creatureless Control: You know I am like that Caligula deck. You want to see me go at it again. I know you do.
UB Trinket Control: There is nothing that MagicGatheringStrat needs more than another Trinket video. You all know this.
UG Madness. Don't listen to RG Madness. I am the madness deck enabled by Vintage Masters and I am the perfect build by Aught3. We have to see me again!
WatchRites: Dan does not want me back. So vote me back to annoy him! Also, I deserve some jphsnake love.
White Hot Hottie: I am hot. I am white. Am I Tara Reid? No, I am the deck you want to vote back!
Zoo: We bought a zoo.

Basic facts
What is the Pauper Gauntlet? 
http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-pauper-gauntlet.html

Full list of the 77 Pauper Gauntlet decks for the second season: 

The above link also contains information about how you can win free prizes (including an Elspeth, Sun's Champion and two foil Shocklands (paper) by watching the pauper Gauntlet


What will happen after the voteback?
77 decks entered the Gauntlet. 27+3 decks remain. Round 5 is single elimination in the Tournament Practice Room. Expect the bloodbath to continue. My estimate is that another 10ish decks will fall in round 5.

How can you follow the Pauper Gauntlet?
The twitter account @MagicGathStrat tweets whenever a video is uploaded to the two YouTube channels that feature the Gauntlet: MagicGatheringStrat and sngprop.

Bot Interface v4 - Messages Tab - Bot Manual

"Messages"

Here we will explain the Message Tab in full detail, this section is very important to understand as it the base of communication with your customers. 

Example of results inserted above

Section A: The message entered here will only be displayed to first time customers.
Section B: The message entered here will only be displayed to returning customers.
Section C: These three fields are additional space to communicate with your customers. This is a good area to advertise your website, display your email or an specials you might be having.
Section D: This is the last message your customer will see from your bot, make it count. Example of a good message. " Please add us to your buddy list for easy access to your saved credits" Get creative!
Section E: This where choose to pay 2.5% or 3.5% for your renting fee, it will display the message shown in the diagram above if check and will charge 2.5%, if unchecked it will display nothing and charge you 3.5%.
Section F: This is the message that the customers will see on the Magic Online Classified, you can use special characters and price syntaxes to make your classified message stand out. Example:
Refer to the Syntax section below  to see a complete list of these commands and their functions.
Section G: This message is displayed when your bot is in a trade, you can customize a busy message as seen below or use this for more advertisement. Example:
The special character symbols can be found here.

Syntax Section: You can use any combination of the following syntaxes when creating your classified message.

#sell / buy#Display the selling price (or the buying price) and name of a randomly chosen card, when typed together with a slash  (#sell_buy_M) will display like this1.89/1.59
#THS#Setname (3 letters, Uppercase), force replacement in the specified set
#M/R/U/C #
Rarity, force replacement with an item of the specified rarity
#2digits/1digit#Displays the price in 1,2, or 3 decimal places Ex. 1.1,1.10,1.100
#Foil#Will Display a foil card.
#>0.7 / <0.3#Will display a card less than .7 or greater than .3 
#noprice#Will not display the price.
#noname#Will not display the card name.
#shortname#Shortname, display a short version of the name, for example only 'Brimaz'
#Tarmogoyf#  Cardname, replace with the specific cardname (must specify setname)
#PP#PersonalPrices.txt, force replacement with items contained only in PersonalPrices.txt
#CFA#CardsForAdvertisement.txt, force replacement with items contained only in CardsForAdvertisement.txt
#noseparator# 
This will  remove the  [sV] separator, otherwise each card will print
between each card syntax.

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