Mtgo Average collection value - 21th June-August

Prices are still going down, but the big drop we saw at the end of July seems to be finished. For sure now the mtgo cards are their bottom value...

MTGO Library Bot 9.93

ML Bot 9.93 introduces the "market share" info boxes on the Online Control Panel, on the dashboard, right below the central graphs (scroll down if you have a small screen).

What is there? The market share boxes tell you how your bots are doing in the Magic Online market, with reference to the number and the value of the trades. In the example below, the bots did trades for 0.91% of the value of the market in the last 7 days, and 0.89% in the last month (the bots basically earned a 0.02% share).

The idea is to give you a measure of "how much" you are performing compared to other bots, so you can answer questions like: "this week I did well: is this because my bots are doing well, or is this because the overall MTGO economy is doing well?". And viceversa: "this month I had few trades: and I losing trades and market share, or is the overall economy slowing down a bit?" 

MTGO Library Bot 6.83 - introducing "Profit Protection"

ML Bot 6.83 has just been released. There is nothing new here at a first sight, but it prepares the field for the "Profit Protection" tool we will introduce tomorrow!

Please stay tuned because this will be something big :-)

Doubling Trades Project: Reward Loyalty |Part8 of 9|

Doubling Trades Project

Part 1 The Concept

Part 2 Where are we now?

Part 3 Dedicate your time

Part 4 Be Unique and Proud

Part 5 Let yourself be found

Part 6 Less is more 

Part 7 Show your human side

Part 8 Reward Loyalty

Part 9 Conclusion

Reward Loyalty

Number one rule when dealing with a regular Customer is to not take his/her loyalty for granted; You might remember when you started playing MTGO, you used to go to a certain bot, then you moved into another one, up to the point where you decided to have your own bots. What could have the first bot owner done better to keep you as his Customer?

Maybe when I started playing MTGO, nearly four years ago, there wasn't much MTGO Library offered to reward loyalty; surely you could still offer discount codes/vouchers to use on your website; give some free credit based on total traded with your bots every week or month; or maybe give free credit/tix prizes every month to a random customer, like some do...

Fortunately MTGO Library has a Special Buddies feature where you can not just give discount when selling cards, but also give extra when buying; and the best of it all is that this is 100% automated, giving your customer a 24/7 sense of loyalty where he doesn't need you to come online to give him the "regular customer" benefits.

How you use your SpecialBuddies feature? That's totally up to you. Make up a clan and give all the members the same? Give a stacking 1% discount up to x% as long as the customer does a certain amount of trades per certain time?(a bit forceful?) or just use it to give your best friends and family a very big discount or so. Whatever the reason or the method, SpecialBuddies feature has been working well for me towards keeping my regulars, you should try it if you haven't yet. 

Doubling Trades Project: Show your human side |Part7 of 9|

Doubling Trades Project

Part 1 The Concept

Part 2 Where are we now?

Part 3 Dedicate your time

Part 4 Be Unique and Proud

Part 5 Let yourself be found

Part 6 Less is more 

Part 7 Show your human side

Part 8 Reward Loyalty

Part 9 Conclusion

Show your human side

Times are tight for every type of business, including MTGO Botting. This means that profit margins get smaller and we need to work harder, so the only way to get more profit overall is to increase the influx of customers and the number of trades.

Being an fully automated trading buddy,  MTGO Library's bots seem to do everything you need just fine, but there is a little something that can go a long way; that is showing your human side.

There are many ways you can intervene and do the best for your customers. A good example is the Customer that is picking a full deck from your bot when he has 100 Event tickets tradable and the bot is quoting 100.21, you will notice the customer taking some cards out and putting them back in, possibly trying to end on a number like 99.xxx. 

You can give your customer 0.21 free credit and allow him to get all his needs for 100 event tickets. This might not sound wise, after all you might think that you would get the 100 Tickets "off" him anyway, but this is not always right. Often this customer will unpick a card worth 5.21 and when the bot quotes a nice round number (95.000) they seem satisfied and finish the deal. Then if that Customer finds that one card for 5 Event tickets on another bot, they might judge your bot's pricing and you will potentially lose a Customer.

Every time you are sitting next to the PC, keep an eye on your most active bots, from letting a Customer know that your bot its just restarting and will be back in 5 minutes when he was trying to open trades; give general advice to your regular customers, such deck building tips, which formats are best for new players; between others, can go a long way in building trust and loyalty.

Rewarding Loyalty will be my next topic in these series...

Doubling Trades Project: Less is more |Part6 of 9|

Doubling Trades Project

Part 1 The Concept

Part 2 Where are we now?

Part 3 Dedicate your time

Part 4 Be Unique and Proud

Part 5 Let yourself be found

Part 6 Less is more 

Part 7 Show your human side

Part 8 Reward Loyalty

Part 9 Conclusion

Less is more

The Fastest and easier way to increase the trade volume is improving buying prices and reduce sell prices.This sometimes comes with the risk of placing your bots a bit too exposed of professional traders but it can be worth it if done right!

Instead of spending $100 this month on a google ads campaign or so, allow yourself $100 of loss in MTGO and see the great results that can bring in the long run. Bump all buy prices 5%-10% (depending on how high you buy them) for a week or so, and do announce it! The same goes to sell prices.
Even if you buy a card for 12 Event tickets that is likely worth just about 11.5, if you are lucky enough to buy it from a new player and not a "wikiprice raider", the chances are that you just made a long term Customer that might give you considerable profits in the long run.

The way you can filter these "unwanted" traders can range from removing yourself from wikiprice (which I do not recommend if you are looking into increasing the trade count) up to simply have the bots running on a second screen and supervise every trade as it happens while you are on PC.

Push as far as you can, the heavier traffic might be mostly people enjoying your great prices but when you go back to your "normal" prices, hopefully some of those Customers will come back and pay back your losses.

Doubling Trades Project: Let yourself be found |Part5 of 9|

Doubling Trades Project

Part 1 The Concept

Part 2 Where are we now?

Part 3 Dedicate your time

Part 4 Be Unique and Proud

Part 5 Let yourself be found

Part 6 Less is more 

Part 7 Show your human side

Part 8 Reward Loyalty

Part 9 Conclusion

Let yourself be found

Instead of telling you make a website and spend a fortune on advertising it on google or so, I will be giving a few little tips on how you'll be more likely found by new customers.

Classifieds

Classifieds is the most common way to attract new customers, and you have to make the most out of it. Have a look at what your bots are advertising on classifieds, How easy is it to spot them while mixed with other bots? how many cards are you managing to advertise in the classifieds? What cards and values are you advertising on classifieds?

These will be key factors in the number of new customers you will make. Do not focus too much on advertising cards that are worth under 1 Event ticket. This is because its highly unlikely that someone wont use their regular bot; that sells the card for 0.2; to you use your bot that sells it for 0.192.

Make sure you advertise the most popular and traded cards. A good example of this are the standard staples (such as Boros Reckoner). You can achieve this by using the CFA (cardsforadvertisement) or using the right commands in the classifieds, which in my case, I use commands such as #BUY_GTC_>5_1digit#. Which leads to my next tip, using the command _1digit makes it not just cleaner on classifieds (displaying 7.1 instead of 7.112, for example) but will also likely free up space for one more card in your classifieds message. 

Avoid using symbols that take a long command, such as  [sArrGameplayU] for an arrow,  as these will count on your character limit and will easily reduce the number of cards you can advertise.

Other methods to get yourself found will involve direct contact with new players and "inviting" them into using your bots, website or clan. Using streams or sponsoring other streams and events can also help getting your name out there.   Some of these will be covered in the future parts of this guide.

Doubling Trades Project: Be Unique and Proud |Part4 of 9|

Doubling Trades Project

Part 1 The Concept

Part 2 Where are we now?

Part 3 Dedicate your time

Part 4 Be Unique and Proud

Part 5 Let yourself be found

Part 6 Less is more 

Part 7 Show your human side

Part 8 Reward Loyalty

Part 9 Conclusion

Be Unique and Proud

Are you worried by all the competition in the classifieds? Are you losing customers to big bot chains and other individual bots? What is it that people are attracted to? The answer is uniqueness. Consumers are willing to pay more for what they can't get elsewhere. Are you providing what your customers want?

Competition

Go to Starbucks. Buy a coffee. Watch what is going on. Why is it that people will ignore McDonald's and walk an extra two blocks to pay a premium price just for a Starbucks coffee? Think status. Think atmosphere. Think packaging and presentation. Once you finished your coffee go home and look into what the best bot chains offer that you don't. Are they faster? do they buy everything higher?;or just the rares/mythics? do they draw any prizes to random customers? Do they organize events? Surely they will be ticking more boxes than you.

Make Yourself Special

What can you give that no other bot else does? This is a bit of a hard question when there are thousands of direct competitors, but instead of spending a week thinking about it, get into the Magic Online environment and ask your customers and other MTGO players themselves. You will be surprised on how good and bad criticism can give you great ideas to implement in your business.

In a few days I will talk about ways to get your name out there!

Doubling Trades Project: Dedicate your time |Part3 of 9|

Doubling Trades Project

Part 1 The Concept

Part 2 Where are we now?

Part 3 Dedicate your time

Part 4 Be Unique and Proud

Part 5 Let yourself be found

Part 6 Less is more 

Part 7 Show your human side

Part 8 Reward Loyalty

Part 9 Conclusion

Dedicate your time

When most of us started using MTGO Library bot we though that all automated and easy so we would just have to press "launch" and enjoy the profits, but the reality is a bit far from that.

Sooner or later we did realize that investing personal time into tweaking prices, give customer service and so on is very beneficial to the business. So dedicating time to the bots is a must.

The majority of us work on the bots from home and have to deal with all the same issues that hit all other types of home workers. Here are some tips on how to have efficient uninterrupted work time. 

Set office hours

First try to set aside a time exclusively to work on your bots and for your customers, this can be as low as 1 or 2 hours a day, don't go over the edge and start with more hours than you can commit to spend on your bots.  Remember to give yourself at least 1 day off a week.

The personal battle

Secondly, separate personal life from your bot business. When its time to work, be 100% focused, make notes on what you need doing and how to do it; then do it! When the work is done, then you can watch your favorite tv show, play some computer games or play with your kids! 

The work battle

Separate "home" from "work" time. Set a space in your house just for the botting business, even if its just a corner of a room. When working do not distract yourself with making food, doing home tasks or using social media websites(unless you're promoting your business there). Do not work wearing your pyjamas, this is part of separating work from home in your mind.

Flexibility is your friend

The time you will spend doing all this will have big results on your overall customers happiness, but don't let it be too restricted! Set yourself boundaries and rules; allowances to have a "day off" or how many days you are allowed to adjust the starting time or how long of a break time you should have in between working times; After all this is the advantage of working from home in the first place.

Doubling Trades Project: Where are we now? |Part2 of 9|

Part 1 The Concept

Part 2 Where are we now?

Part 3 Dedicate your time

Part 4 Be Unique and Proud

Part 5 Let yourself be found

Part 6 Less is more 

Part 7 Show your human side

Part 8 Reward Loyalty

Part 9 Conclusion

Where are we now?

You cannot identify or even set it as a target (doubling trades) if you don't have any means of quantifying your trades and stock value.

Your very first step will be to investigate your past. With a few searches of full months, you will be able to identify how many tix are coming in and out every month, the cheer amount of trades and who are you best regular Customers.

 

Trade log has countless different ways to filter your results.

I would recommend you to do a search of all trades over 1 Event ticket (no point in taking into account sub tix trades) of each of the last 3 months. This way if there is already a growth every month (lets say for example, 10%) we will not mistake a 10% increase in the future months as something "we caused" with this guide.

Take note of the comparable data and once that is done, calculate the total collection value on the first of every month; remember to add up the event tickets and any exterior sale (or redemption) you've made throughout the previous month and keep this information organized. To calculate the collection value you can either use the MTGO Library's collection log or any other standalone tool (Link).

In two days I will be talking about organizing your working times. See you soon!

Doubling Trades Project: The Concept |Part1 of 9|

Doubling Trades Project

Part 1 The Concept

Part 2 Where are we now?

Part 3 Dedicate your time

Part 4 Be Unique and Proud

Part 5 Let yourself be found

Part 6 Less is more 

Part 7 Show your human side

Part 8 Reward Loyalty

Part 9 Conclusion

The Concept

This month I will be guiding through some of the steps that you can take to double your bots amount of trades in just one month. Many of these were a key part on my own success with the BestDeal Bot Chain and I believe that they could help you too. 

Every 2 days I will talk about one of the fundamental steps that I did take to boost my Customer count. By the end of this month you will have the complete guide and will be able to apply all the changes throughout December. By the end of January you will then be able to compare how you have done on each of the last months and, hopefully, notice a big increase in your bots traffic, trade count and profit!

Estimated Profit

Starting from today, 6pm, all the ML Bots with version greater or equal than 6.11 can view the "Estimated Profit" in the Tradelog. 

What is this? This is the projection of the profit, computed as sum of the selling prices - (minus) sum of the buying prices / (divided by) 2.  

The profit is computed as difference between the actual selling prices and the buying prices, divided by two because the profit will be "full" only when the selling (or buying) part of the trade will be performed. This profit is "estimated" because prices can go and up down, and you could sell (for example) sell at slighly higher or lower value. In a normal market the two values (estimated profit and real profit) are close.

Let's have an example. The bot in the image bought 4 Dissension Boosters 20 minutes ago at 1.92. The Estimated Profit of the trade is 2.008 because the selling price here is 2.924 and the buying price is 1.92 (and thus (2.924-1.92)/2 and multiplied by 4 is 2.008).  Only the CardLog, of course, can tell you the real Profit, so let's click on the link (see second image).

  

The CardLog basically says that the profit on a single item Dissesion Booster is 0.473 tixs on average. Multiplied by 4 (because 4 items are involved in the trade) we get 1.892: a value very close to the Estimated profit.

Hope you'll like!

Bad to the Bone - Part 3

On Sunday, my colleague posted that putting the names of popular bot chains in their classified

messages was unethical and used by bad bots.

http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-comprehensive-guide-for-aspiring_13.html

Simply putting the name of the competition in your advertising message so that your bot will show up in search results has been done since marketers realized they might be able to curtail the competition by using such strategies.

Bad bots however do far more than simply inserting the competition’s name so that their bot shows up in the results. 

• Saying that your bot will sell a card for X when the bot sells it for X+Y
• Saying that your bot will purchase a card for X when the bot will buy it for X-Y
• Saying that your bot will purchase X copies of a card when in reality it is set to only accept X-Y
• Saying that your bots are linked when in reality they are not.
• Saying that you have X cards in your collection when in reality the bot has significantly fewer cards.
• Posting an email address or a website which does not exist or gives the customer a way to contact the owners

These tactics may give the bot a little publicity and maybe even an up-tick in sales, but customers will notice and over time, such tactics are not successful.

Doubt me?  Look at your own life and your own purchases and the brands you trust.  Would you buy an eye-pad from a company named Aqqle?  If gasoline was listed at $4 a gallon on sign buy $5 on the pump, would you purchase gasoline there?  Would you go purchase it a second time?

The "Five" types of bots

Often I get asked the same question "What is the best way to price a card?" as easy as this might sound, all will depend on how much money you are willing to invest into the game and how much risk you're ready to take.

I will start by showing this generalized bots with different price strategies:

We all already know that some bots buy cheap to sell cheap and others buy high and sell reasonable cheap, but many fail to understand that trying to be the cheapest seller and highest buyer at the same time, often leads to massive losses.

BOT 1: "The Cheap Seller"

This kind of bot is quite simple, it involves very little to no risk at all and while not getting the most visits a day, when it does buy something good, often sells it quickly and for a good profit.

It seems like a good easy way to make money, but this kind of pricing will make the supplying customers feel ripped off (when they realize how cheaply you buy) and the buying customers hardly will become regulars, as they might just be buying cards for the sake of being so cheap (or to sell them back to BOT 4/5).

BOT 2: MTGO Library Default Pricelist

This pricing is what I would recommend a new bot, while having a good decent profit margin to be called "risk free",this often falls in the trap of still being a bot that "doesn't buy quite as high as the others". Theres a chance of making some regulars, but with time they might move on into bots like BOT3/4 as they seem to have the 3 things regulars like: Higher buying prices; Cheaper selling prices; Bigger stock.

BOT3: "Average Bot"

While I would recommend the default pricelist to a new bot, once you start getting a few customers and regulars, you should slowly edge a bit the buying prices forward, this will keep your regulars happy. This bot will always pick a bunch of cards from what you are trying to sell, and also likely to have a lot of cards that you need. This is the perfect bot for attracting many constructed players, while having a decent profit margin.

BOT4: "Minimal Profit Bot"

This kind of bot might seem a smart way of making profit. Many would be fooled that this bot will make much more profit than BOT3 simply because it will sell and buy the same card more often, but this bot hasa few downfalls. Firstly a very short gap on profit margins often mean that you will not get profit in a few specific cards, possibility big losses. The reason for this is because you will sell a newly popular card before you have time to increase the price, or the opposite, you will be the first to buy a card when it gets banned before you can reduce the price. To cover the loss caused on "not so good" trades, you will need to make many "regular" ones to break even.

BOT5: "Top Buyer, Expensive Seller"

This is the bot which every drafter will have on their buddy list. Very popular for top buying prices, this is the first spot where drafters will try and unload their cards. The downside is that, in order to buy this high, you will have to sell the previous bought copies of that card at high prices. This means that while a drafter might be excited that you are paying top dollar for 2 of his cards, he will be quite disappointed that it hasn't picked any other of his 10.000 tradable cards. This bot requires "rich" regular buying customers that want a fully stocked bot and don't mind paying extra for having it all under one roof.

Where do you think your bot fits? Currently my BestDeal bot is somewhere between BOT4 and BOT5, then each of the other bots on the chain sell slightly cheaper and buy slightly lower.

MTGO Library Bot 5.99

ML Bot 5.99 is another great update, introducing "Special Buddies".
Who are the "special buddies"? These are persons you want to encourage / discourage from trading with your bot by adjusting their selling and buying prices.
An example: you can give a discount to your friends, or to the members of your clan. You can make cards more expensive for cherry pickers.

ML Bot 5.99 is now also able to recover from a "generic crash" (see image below). This is useful, for example, if Explorer (or some other software) crashes and blocks Mtgo.

Finally, the new version features a better mtgo-launching procedure and has a timer that will automatically restart the launch after waiting 3 hours without errors or feedback of any sort.

Manual intervention (Part 2)

Giving Away Freebies
While giving away free stuff doesn't sound like the right thing to do, many businesses owe their success to this practice. "Freebie Marketing"(link), also known as the razor and blades business model, is a business model where one item is sold at a low price (or given away for free) in order to increase sales of a complementary good, such as supplies (inkjet printers and ink cartridges, "Swiffers" and cleaning fluid, mobile phones and service contracts).





Freebie Marketing in MTGO
While many might think that giving away free cards isn't beneficial within a MTGO business the reality is, after I done some tests, I had some positive results which I will share with you.
Many of my sales out of the client (such as on my bots website and others) are made by MTGO users that never traded with my bots and many of which are quite new to MTGO. While this seems like a perfect combination to have a bit of a chat and introduce them to my bots (and hopefully get a new regular Customer), the reality is that only about 10-15% ended up using my bots after their order.

The Test
My test was to give every customer(that never used my bots before) that made any order above $10 or so a few cents credit on my bot (such as 0.5 - 0.75), explain them my bots unusual pricing and see what happened. While my sample isn't the biggest, I can tell that within one week of giving the "freebie" at least half of my "test subjects" done at least trade with my bots worth over 1 Event Ticket.

Conclusion
Examples of this marketing strategy can be seen all over MTGO. From "free bots" (easily over half of new players hear about mtgotraders "free bot" within 1 month of playing MTGO) which give a massive advertisement to their chain, to discount codes on first orders, etc.
Remember to be wise if you are trying this path as part of my success could be due to the Customer trust made from a very fast delivery and clear helpful communication on their purchased goods in the first place.

On next week, I'll talk about card transfers.

World of Warcraft vs MTGO: the Client

Yesterday I wondered why Wizards of the Coast needs to build (totally from scratches) and deploy a new version of Magic Online every 5 years. A software is not like an hardware (read: PlayStation, Xbox) that needs to be completely redesigned every 5 years to keep up with the market. A software can be updated every week (even without a downtime) using Continuos Integration.

Blizzard developed one client (the famous World of Warcraft) in 2004, and continuosly updated it, patched it, added new lands, fixed the rules and so on so forth. I am sure that the World of Warcraft client running today on our PCs does not share any single line of code with the first client of  2004. Still, Blizzard never imposed an abrupt transiction to the user base.

Mirror Mirror (Part 2 of 3)

Last time I postulated that the health of an activity is due to the amateur, the non-professional.  In the case of Magic, if the casual player is playing, this is good for the game.  Professional players do not primarily care about how fun a Tier 1 deck is, only can that deck win a tournament.  Casual players on the other hand, want a fun experience.  A professional player would never ever consider a tribal deck of walls; something I concocted to better success than one would expect.

The folks in the ivory tower know this.  This is why “un-fun” cards like Armageddon, Stone Rain, and Counterspell have been removed.  We’ve also seen deck archetypes nerfed to make them less appealing, decks like Land Destruction and Hand Destruction.

These same folks took a look at the Legends rule and decided that it needed tweaking.  How many games have you seen where a person plays a Legend, strictly as a defensive measure; either as an expensive kill spell, or as a one-turn Status? Professional players understand such nuances of the game and do not care, so long as they can gain an advantage, no matter how small.  But to the casual player, who has only one (1) or two (2) Legendary cards, to finally get a chance to actually play it meaningfully, and only to have it removed because the opponent randomly added it to their deck, is totally un-fun.

So the ivory folks decided that the Highlander aspect of the Legends Rule needs to be removed.  This will have little effect on the professional player.  But to the casual player, it means a little more fun.

But the real impact of this change will be in future cards.  Instead of a handful of Legends and Planewalkers, Wizards can now make these cards in the uncommon and even the common rarity.  This would allow for Planewalker-drafts to be interesting.  And to the casual player, interesting is what you want Magic games to be.

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!

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.