How to trade in a Bear Market

As mentioned in a previous article, the mtgo market has continued to decrease in valuation.

http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2016/08/mtgo-average-collection-value-21th-june.html

So today I'd like to provide some tips on how to trade in a bear market.

1.  Be very selective on your purchases by purchasing cards that are fast movers, because what you buy will probably decrease in value.  
2.  Flip your cards as quickly as possible.  Again, this is because the card value will probably decrease in value.  So you want to either make a small profit or take a small loss as quickly as possible and move on to the next sale.
3.  Decrease your profit margins (lower the gap between sell and buy price) to increase inventory turns.
4.  Purchase cards over time to average down purchase price.  For example:  your bot might buy 4 quantities of a certain card, now set the buy limit to 2 or 1 quantity instead.  Then increase the buy quantity over time as prices come down so you can average down your purchase price.
5.  And of course, always maintain a certain amount of tickets on your bots at all times regardless of a Bull or Bear Market.  This builds customer loyalty and confidence in your bots.

 

A Modern League with Naya Burn - the conclusion

A couple of weeks ago I started my very first league with a solid 2-0 result taking down Hate Bears and Affinity. You can check it out here: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2016/08/playing-modern-league-with-naya-burn.html

Then I went 1-1 and was 3-1 going into this final match.

Interestingly enough, my final match was against Naya Burn featuring Wild Nacatl.

The question whether to include Wild Nacatl in Naya Burn is a difficult one and seems to come down to taste - i.e. decks with or without Wild Nacatl have a similar win percentage over a large sample size.



Overall, I enjoyed my first league experience and I have already started a second one. I also like the deck quite a bit - I feel it is a very strong deck against a large amount of the field.

Here is my deck list:  http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2016/04/my-new-tier-1-modern-deck.html

Kaladesh: mechanics

Prerelease of Kaladesh starts on September, 24. This time there are no returning mechanics. Instead, we will get three totally new:

• Crew - each Vehicle starts out as just an artifact. Well, an artifact with some potential. It is keyword ability that enables vehicles to become artifact creatures until end of turn. To activate the crew ability, tap any number of creatures you control with total power equal to or greater than the crew number. Because the crew ability doesn't use the tap symbol, you can tap any untapped creature you control, even with summoning sickness. You can even tap an animated Vehicle to crew another Vehicle. Additionally, there is a 'Pilot' creature type, which usually gives Vehicle some bonuses, if it was tapped to pay the Crew cost. 
• Fabricate - when a creature with Fabricate enters the battlefield you may put a number of +1/+1 counters on the creature, or create a number of 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature tokens. The number after fabricate tells you how many +1/+1 counters or Servos you get.
• Energy counters represent Aether, a magical energy that is found throughout the Multiverse and is an integral part of the ecosystem on Kaladesh. Energy counters are a new resource, placed on players in form of a counter, likewise Poison counters. They are used to pay the cost to activate abilities. Most cards that give you energy counters also give you a way to spend them. Energy counters that you get from one card can be saved up and spent on abilities of other cards. Energy counters don't go away, there is no 'energyburn' when a phase of your turn ends. The only way to lose them is to spend them. 

Average mtgo card value 8th July - 8th September

New Pricing System Coming Soon

Mtgo Library is currently working on a major improvement to the background price updater that will be released in October.  It is a total rewrite of the current one with a more advanced algorithm. The new pricing system will be dynamic and will allow the bot to follow the market immediately with two extra controls based on current sales and inventory stock.  As always, Mtgo Library continues to make investments to keep their bots on the cutting-edge.

More details to come!

Easter Eggs

An Easter egg is an intentional inside joke, hidden message, or feature in an interactive work such as a computer program, video game or other. It is no different with MtG. It's name is used to evoke the idea of a traditional Easter egg hunt.

There are many Easter eggs in MtG, but I've selected ones that I like the most. Each set has its own hidden Easter eggs. Artists have been constantly winking to us since Alpha set. Feel free to add more propositiones in comments.

Uktabi Orangutan. In this card we see some 'monkey business' going on in the background and then in Unhinged set we've got a Uktabi Kong. We may see there a results of this activity.

Flame Wave. Take a look near the center of the underside of the wave and you will see what appears to be a guy surfing on the magma. He has either protection from red or suicidal tendencies.

Forcefield. The man in the art from Forcefield is holdin up the background of Mox Jet..

The next block is set on Amonkhet

There was a big announcement recently from Wotc.

The next block after Kaladesh is set on the world of Amonkhet, ruled by Nicol Bolas himself. The name sounds Egyptian to me. I am ready for some sphinxes, pyramids and pharaohs.

The first set of the block is "Rise Among the Worthy". It will be released on April 28, 2017.

The second set of the block is "Hour of Devastation". It will be released on July 14, 2017.

They also announced Modern Masters 2017 for March 17, 2017 featuring cards from sets from 8th Edition (Blood Moon perhaps?) through Magic 2014, probably with a focus on Innistrad and Return to Ravnica blocks.

Read the full announcement here: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/announcement-day-2016-08-31