(This week is brought to you in Technicolor, wowsers!)
Last week I said that this week I would talk about going Infinite. If I say now that I’m going to talk about Going Infinite next week, is that in some strange way Going Infinite in articles? Possibly, but to avoid such horrible punnery taking place, I am in fact going to talk about it this week. And tying it in specifically with breaking the potential infinite cycle, I’m actually going to talk about not Going Infinite and how it’s probably a better plan than actually trying to Go Infinite.
That’s right, not Going Infinite.
Obviously this is going to require a little explanation for those of you not in the know, and because I’m that kind of guy, I’ll try to sum it up in exactly 881 words.
(Wooo content!)
Right, here goes. When Magic Online first came out, it was free. Well, it wasn’t really free, it was just in beta testing, but everyone was pretty pleased with the fact that we were getting to play Magic on the Internet for free without it sucking, and let’s face it, those other softwares sure did suck compared. Anyway, eventually Magic Online left beta testing, and much to the utter disappointment and absolute horror and outright disgust and downright cheap-assedness of the players, Wizards wisely decided finally charge for their Digital Objects.
(I say “wisely” here because it was absolutely the best decision ever, but more on that another week)
Many of us foolishly elected not to spend up large on Invasion block cards and therefore missed the first opportunity to Go Infinite with ease. However, not many people realized that buying up Invasion block cards would lead to Going Infinite, so I feel we could all be excused on that one. Those who did buy up large on those nuggets of Gold are now rolling in tickets, with the price of many Extended playable cards being frankly ridiculous.
Hey, speaking of Extended, here is the Extended Premier Events Top 8 recap.
(Beautiful segue there, first rate!)
10 (4) Azorius Urzatron (Blue/White Urzatron)
9 (5) Tendrils Combo (Extended’s Seething Song, Rite of Flame Combo deck)
6 (4) CAL (Life from the Loam Control)
6 (3) Affinity (The dreaded Artifact deck)
6 (2) Loam Aggro Control (Green/Red/White Life from the Loam Aggro Control)
4 (5) Counterbalance Aggro Control (Nassif’s Blue/White/Red Trinket Mage deck)
3 (10) Boros Deck Wins (Red/White Aggro, sometimes with splashes)
3 (4) Destructive Flow Aggro (Green/Red/Black Aggro with Destructive Flow)
2 (6) Four to Five Color Gifts Rock (Green/Black/White Control with Blue and Red for goodies)
2 (3) Goblin Combo (Rite of Flame Goblin Aggro)
2 (3) Friggorid (Blue/Black Aggro Dredge)
2 (2) Simictron (Blue/Green Urzatron)
2 (1) Scepter Chant (Blue/White/Red Control)
1 (3) Gruul Aggro (Green/Red Aggro)
1 (1) Green/X Tooth and Nail (Insert additional color for large spells here)
1 (1) Simic Aggro Control (Blue/Green Aggro Control, not Madness, but just… Blue/Green with a splash of Red)
1 (0) Dragonstorm (More like a Tendrils deck than the Standard version)
1 (0) Eggs (Second Sunrise combo)
1 (0) Golgari Aggro (Green/Black Aggro, not very Rock like)
1 (0) Balancing Tings (All those Invasion sac lands, but with Balancing Act instead of Minds Desire and Co)
0 (2) Unknown
0 (1) Psychatog (Blue/Black/X Control)
0 (1) Izzetron (Blue/Red Urzatron)
0 (1) Grow! (Blue/White/Green Quirion Dryad Aggro control)
0 (1) Boros Explosion (Red/White Aggro splashing Black for Insidious Dreams into Erratic Explosion Draco…)
0 (1) Hierarch Aggro Control (Green/Black/White Aggro Control, just like the Standard version but with Wild Mongrel and stuff)
The Azorius Urzatron decks are streaking out in front now, and beginning to show various innovations, such as substituting the Urzatron parts for the Cloudpost and Vesuva combo (actually kinda mentioned several weeks ago, *cough*) and adding Trinket Mage for versatility. Boros had a particularly poor showing this week, which seems surprising considering the number of people I see about the internet saying “meh, I’ll just play Boros.” Actually, that might explain quite a lot.
Anyway, the first form of Going Infinite was the simplest – to continuously win draft queues, and therefore end up with infinitely more packs than you started with. Originally, the only prize payout in queues was 8-4, which is 8 packs for the winner and 4 for the person who lost in the third round. The price to enter was 2 tickets and the packs you would be drafting with, which made second place a one-pack profit, and winning a whopping five-pack profit.
(Or as commonly happened, a three-pack profit for both when they split)
The problem being that you have to play Magic to do this, and as we all know, it’s not always easy to win that many games in a row. Often, the best you could hope for was to break even, which even many of the best players admitted was all they were managing to do.
Not long after that, people started figuring out that Going Infinite through playing Constructed was much easier, especially when some people just assumed that other people wouldn’t have competitive decks – “Look out for that Spiritmonger!” “What Spiritmonger?” *thwack* “Ow!” “Thanks for the packs.” The problem with this is that it requires an initial investment, which is probably why it’s a much better route to infinity. Even when most people are playing good decks, as long as you don’t play even partially well, you can yield a miniscule profit, or at least continue playing for free effectively.
The other option, which is the one I followed, was the lesser known but equally easy Infinity Through Trading. Anyone who browses the Message Boards will know that there will people offering to buy stuff and other people offering to sell said stuff. For example, people selling packs for four and buying them for three.
(This isn’t exactly true anymore. As I mentioned last week, many people use fractions of tickets in their prices now, just to make things difficult)
So I could have two accounts, and on one of them I could advertise “Buying TSP {3}” and wait for people to come to me and sell me their Time Spiral packs at three tickets each. On the other I could advertise “Selling TSP {4}, or 2x for {7}” and wait for people to come to be and buy the packs I only paid three tickets for. If you’re going to be logged in all day playing your league or having some games of Momir Basic or even (gasp!) grinding the queues, you may as well be earning the free tickets as you go.
But here’s the rub, the problem, the point I’m trying to build up to here like some 90’s dance party showing no sign of ending any time soon and oh god the socially acceptable but partly illegal designer drugs are beginning to wear off. If you figure out how much time you spend trying to milk these tickets out of the trade market, how much time and effort you’re putting into this, you’ll find you’re making little more than $2-$3 dollars an hour. Unless of course, you start farming /join Auction as well, but again, the dollars per hour from this are still pretty dismal at best.
So there it is. I said it. You’re better off not trying to make money on Magic Online by trading, unless you can somehow find the resources to start up a Magic Online Trading Empire and run several bots at the same time, which usually requires many computers, infinite time, and start-up cashola.
The single best way to get ahead on Magic Online is play Constructed, for which you need a Constructed deck. Many people see this as a barrier to online play, which is just as true as it is in real life, and the way you overcome this online is exactly the same way as you would in real life. You either borrow a deck, which requires knowing someone with a deck they can lend, or you suck it up and buy one. Anyone who thinks that’s too much to do is dreaming – you only get out what you put in.
Aaaaaanyway, rant over, let’s check out the Standard Premier Events Top 8 recap.
(I need to make that name longer… that would be awesome)
16 (12) Mono Blue Morph Control (Fed by Fathom Seer and Vesuvan Shapeshifter)
11 (3) Trisketron (White/Blue Urzatron Control)
10 (10) Dimir Control (Blue/Black Control, made to tick by Desert apparently!)
9 (4) Boros Deck Wins (Red/White Aggro)
8 (12) Simic Aggro Control (Blue/Green)
7 (5) MGA (Mono Green Aggro)
5 (3) Selesnya Aggro Control (Green/White Aggro Control. Yes, sometimes with Glare)
3 (6) Dragonstorm Combo (Blue/Red/Black Combo)
3 (3) Gruul Aggro (Red/Green Aggro)
3 (1) Angel Control (Blue/Red/White Control)
3 (1) Goblin Combo (Seething Song and Rite of Flame and Empty the Warrens)
2 (5) Orzhov Control (Black/White Control)
2 (4) Izzetron (Blue/Red Urzatron Control)
2 (2) Panda Connection (Black/White Aggro with hand disruption)
2 (2) Solar Flare (Blue/Black/White Control)
2 (0) Green/Black/Blue Dredge (Aggro Control Dredge Reanimator type thing)
1 (10) Mono Black Aggro (Small Black men and Bad Moon!)
1 (2) Izzet Snow Control (Blue/Red Snow Control)
1 (1) White/Red/Black Angel Control (Trading the Compulsive Researches for Phyrexian Arena and Castigate)
1 (1) Zoo (Green/White/Red Aggro)
1 (0) Magnivore (Blue/Red Land Denial Control)
1 (0) Red/White/Blue Blink (Momentary Blink Aggro Control)
1 Green/Red/Black Aggro Control (Why settle for just Gruul or Golgari when you can have both?)
1 (0) Hierarch Control (Green/White/Black Control)
0 (3) Azorius Control (Blue/White Control)
0 (2) Unknown
0 (1) Golgari Aggro Control (Green/Black Aggro Control)
0 (1) Proclamation Control (White/Blue Martyr of Sands, Proclamation of Rebirth Combo)
0 (1) Reanimator (Blue/Red/Black cheat fatties into play)
0 (1) Selesnya Blink Aggro Control (Green/White with a touch of Blue Aggro Control)
Once again, Blue is all but dominating, and the only reason we don’t consider it to be actually dominating is that Blue’s PR is that good. Boros is bouncing back a little, and despite climbing in popularity in recent weeks, Mono Black Aggro noticeably absent this week. Also worth noting is that Mono Green Aggro is again making waves in the background. Some people about the Internet are saying things like “once MGA becomes better than Boros…” and “with card X, Mono Green Aggro will be really good…” but to be quite honest, I feel that these people are spending a little too much time basking in the sunshine of Last Month. And my, hasn’t Dragonstorm fallen?
It’s time for me to go. There are half a million people in my living room (where I write. Bad Idea? Maybe…) trying to play Guitar Hero 2, and I feel the need to go locate sharp objects with which to hurt them.
{e}