Flatten League Prize Payouts

[bji]

My suggestion is this: now that there are so few formats that any casual player can play, can you please stop making the event payouts so skewed to the skilled and experienced players?

Draft queue pays only for 2 or 3 wins. So only the best players get anything. So effectively you are punishing your newbie players. Why would you do that? Are you TRYING to discourage new players from playing MTGO?

You should pay out something for 1 win. Like, 4 tickets or something. And should pay the most rewards for 2 wins and slightly less for 3. That way the best player still get their 3 win booty but even novices have a chance at getting that 2nd win payout if they can get to 2 wins. Unless you really like ensuring that only the players who live in Magic and discourage new players by constantly beating them is entirely your goal. In addition, paying for 1 win would also make the third game when a player has gone 0 - 2 actually worth playing and more likely to fire because others will be playing in that situation too.

Also, you should generally lower prices or increase prizes. I only play every once in a while because quite frankly it's way too expensive for the play time. You should be encouraging people to play more, not less.

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

I tend to agree, I only consistently play when I feel like I have a legitimate chance at chaining wins... Wherin I get more value.

I dont know if this is the solution though... I think generally making play less expensive for causual players meaning phantom events is probably better.

Most casual players don't care about owning cards as they're "casual" and don't want to make the huge time investment into grinding into a a constructed format.

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

I liked the VIP pass where you get all cards, however, I wasn't in a position to take advantage, the window was short and I'm not up to date on the formats, decklists IE.

That would have been fun...

Like Vintage Cube, Legacy is probably the funnest format to play...

 

[bji]

I tend to agree, I only consistently play when I feel like I have a legitimate chance at chaining wins... Wherin I get more value.

I dont know if this is the solution though... I think generally making play less expensive for causual players meaning phantom events is probably better.

Most casual players don't care about owning cards as they're "casual" and don't want to make the huge time investment into grinding into a a constructed format.

I love phantom events and would prefer them over everything. But with the small player base I'm not sure they'd fire very often. For some reason alot of players dream of making minimum wage (or less) by playing magic online and just HAVE to get cards/packs out of their play time. The rest of us would rather just pay like $6/hr to play Magic, fully realizing that it's a pay to play system and with no illusions that we're going to raise ourselves above abject poverty playing this game.

 

[MTGO_TonyM]

Thread subject changed to attract more upvotes

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

I mean honestly, MTGO is missing out on a huge population of casual players who want to play legacy or modern or even standard but don't have either the money or time.
IF you have the time then you probably don't have the money.

It would be great to have access to all cards more often. I would easily pay a fee for like a month to just grind out a ton of matches over like a holiday break while not breaking the bank for something I don't really have the time for.

I think a lot more players would pay for that VIP pass if the window was more like a month.
And is regularly available meaning all the time or at will.

The way the formats are setup is that players that fit in the group can really only afford standard, whether it be time or money, and they simply don't play because draft isn't always the answer and there's no benefit of owning the cards to these folks.

Basically, there's a potentially huge population of folks that again simply don't play because they don't own the cards to play the formats they want to play or drafting the latest set is not fun or interesting.

Just please, do not make it a subscription model where you have to cancel, make it a pass for a fixed time period and when it expires it needs to be repurchased.

This could also boost participation in other formats if there is any issue with having adequate players.

I'm not sure how MTGO would handle the Championship events given that other players paid a lot of money to collect given sets of cards... but again this could also benefit them too wherin they have access to all the legacy decks persay and not just the one they cobbled together.

Also, I'm sure a bunch of folks in these formats would love a bunch of new players who don't know the ins and outs... like some free wins lol jk jk jk

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

I mean honestly, MTGO is missing out on a huge population of casual players who want to play legacy or modern or even standard but don't have either the money or time.
IF you have the time then you probably don't have the money.

It would be great to have access to all cards more often. I would easily pay a fee for like a month to just grind out a ton of matches over like a holiday break while not breaking the bank for something I don't really have the time for.

I think a lot more players would pay for that VIP pass if the window was more like a month.
And is regularly available meaning all the time or at will.

The way the formats are setup is that players that fit in the group can really only afford standard, whether it be time or money, and they simply don't play because draft isn't always the answer and there's no benefit of owning the cards to these folks.

Basically, there's a potentially huge population of folks that again simply don't play because they don't own the cards to play the formats they want to play or drafting the latest set is not fun or interesting.

Just please, do not make it a subscription model where you have to cancel, make it a pass for a fixed time period and when it expires it needs to be repurchased.

This could also boost participation in other formats if there is any issue with having adequate players.

I'm not sure how MTGO would handle the Championship events given that other players paid a lot of money to collect given sets of cards... but again this could also benefit them too wherin they have access to all the legacy decks persay and not just the one they cobbled together.

Also, I'm sure a bunch of folks in these formats would love a bunch of new players who don't know the ins and outs... like some free wins lol jk jk jk

How this relates to the topic thread... well this gives the casual player something to play without changing the prize structure or entry fees.
I would be super happy with some sort of arraignment like this... Price would have to be right or fair.

That being said, it could significantly alter the prices of cards in the trade sections, why pay 30 tix for a card when you can just rent them.

This could be a good thing though...

There's a line in the sand with a huge population of players that won't jump in the pool and swim because the investment is too high, this blows the door right open for those players.

Even if the prices of phantom drafts were half of that of regular drafts, I wouldn't play that often... It's not as engaging or entertaining.
People want to play with powerfull strong cards and all the constructed formats have always been locked away due to cost.
Again Time and or Money...

I've been playing since 2008ish and I've never once came close to acquiring enough cards to redeem a set through draft or sealed... This is the type of player that your market is missing on.

Sealed is a catch 22 because you open a bad pool and you're screwed... Draft at least has some options to make good of a bad situation.
But it allows you to open a bunch of cards for your collection while possibly winnng something.
Probably the worst feeling in the world paying for a sealed event and opening a crap pool and going 0-3.


At this point in time, I think 85% or more of the players who want to play legacy or modern have already bought the cards to do so... like in a way that market is closed because those players have already bought in... on the other hand, there's the other population here who, is probably fairly large that will never play legacy or modern because again the restrictions.

The question is what's your Longterm outlook for new legacy or modern players vs the in-rush of players who would rent cards on a regular basis to play these awesome formats ?
There's a point of diminishing returns and an untapped market.


A quick numbers check could be to look at how many mtgo accounts there are and subtract how many of those have participated in a single legacy event. Then subtract some artbitrary % because not everyone is interested in legacy or modern ( OR ARE THEY? ) .
This would give you a good idea of how many players you could attract to the vip pass on a regular basis.
Worst case scenario, if it doesn't work out long run, then shut it down. Then compare that to how many players by 1K$ tickets to buy and play a legacy deck and how often.

The hook here is that it's pay to play, literally because the fee for the vip pass.

I think you guys are already on this track given that it was done once already.

 

[bji]

In the early 2000's we had *real leagues*. These were formats you joined and played with your deck for like a month, each week being able to add one more pack. You played 5 matches for points every week and then as many matches after that as you cared to for tiebreakers. That was a format with a lot of play value. You could practice with a deck through nearly endless matches.

I also remember when drafts would fire nearly constantly. I remember the Return to Ravnica release night when 1 minute after the release time, like 100 sealed events had already fired. There is not the population of players to make any of these things happen any more. Why? Because Wizards catered mostly to the "pro crowd" with extreme experience, with prize structures that awarded mostly them, and then an ever dwindling number of event types geared more and more to that pro crowd. The player base was hollowed out.

But I guess it doesn't matter to me any more. Just uninstalled MTGO, which I do after playing for a week or two and remembering how terrible the experience is, but then 6 months later I always fire it up again to see if I'm missing anything. Suffice it to say I am not. See you in 6 months I guess.

One more thing. I've been playing this game off and on for 20 years. Some years I spent literally thousands of dollars playing this game. And not ONE TIME did Wizards EVER solicit my advice or listen to me about anything. Not that I'm some kind of fountain of wisdom that they're missing out on, but it's just puzzling that a company wouldn't even bother finding out about or caring what people who spend thousands of dollars on their product want or prefer. I mean I guess it's no surprise the product is on death's doorstep.

I will never play Arena because I do not want to even know what that experience is like. I want my Magic playing days to be completely over when MTGO finally goes under. Not playing Arena means I won't even know what I'm missing which means I won't feel the itch to play it. After many years when I was completely addicted to MTGO (some years *completely addicted*), it will actually be really sweet when that day comes.

 

[Efrtheropt]

Terrible takes in this thread.

Draft queue pays only for 2 or 3 wins. So only the best players get anything. So effectively you are punishing your newbie players. Why would you do that? Are you TRYING to discourage new players from playing MTGO?

At a 50% winrate you're 50% to win prizes in a draft, so an average player prizes half the time, if you're losing more than you win why should you get prizes? At that win% draft leagues currently have an ev of -1.4tx which is... just not that bad. Also how many new-to-magic players are playing standard drafts on mtgo rather than arena?

And should pay the most rewards for 2 wins and slightly less for 3.

It's massively more difficult to go 3-0 vs 2-1, at 2-1 drafts are already positive ev so why shouldn't players who accomplish the much larger challenge get a much larger reward?

Also, you should generally lower prices or increase prizes.

The prize:cost ratio is about as tight as you can get as is, leagues are already positive ev for anyone with a 49%+ wr. Daybreak is *presumably* trying to make money and giving away tix for free doesn't seem like it would be profitable.

I love phantom events and would prefer them over everything.

Phantom events are always on average more expensive than regular drafts regardless of your win%.

For some reason alot of players dream of making minimum wage (or less) by playing magic online and just HAVE to get cards/packs out of their play time

Or, consider, that a large portion of mtgo players just like playing magic competitively and for real stakes.

The rest of us would rather just pay like $6/hr to play Magic

Well luckily, as long as you have an 18%+ winrate, drafting is, on average, cheaper than that (assuming 1 draft = 1hr).

It would be great to have access to all cards more often. I would easily pay a fee for like a month to just grind out a ton of matches over like a holiday break while not breaking the bank for something I don't really have the time for.

Y'know card rental bots exist and do exactly this, without demolishing the game's economy?

The way the formats are setup is that players that fit in the group can really only afford standard

Pauper also exists.

This could also boost participation in other formats if there is any issue with having adequate players.

Vintage is cheaper than either Modern or Legacy yet it has a fraction of the players, Modern has the most players despite being the most expensive format.

I'm sure a bunch of folks in these formats would love a bunch of new players who don't know the ins and outs... like some free wins

Wins don't mean much if you tank the economy and make the prizes worthless.

I've been playing since 2008ish and I've never once came close to acquiring enough cards to redeem a set through draft or sealed... This is the type of player that your market is missing on,

I would guess that 90%+ of redemptions are by the major bots, so idk what your point is.

I think 85% or more of the players who want to play legacy or modern have already bought the cards to do so... like in a way that market is closed because those players have already bought in...

Must be why prices on cards for those formats fluctuate so much, because nobody's buying or selling them /s

A quick numbers check could be to look at how many mtgo accounts there are and subtract how many of those have participated in a single legacy event. Then subtract some artbitrary % because not everyone is interested in legacy or modern ( OR ARE THEY? ).

Absurd way of evaluating anything. Even if you only evaluate active accounts there are tons of bots, alt accounts, etc. Also, again, vintage is cheaper than legacy and has a large cardpool overlap yet has vastly fewer players, giving everybody legacy decks wouldn't suddenly make everyone play legacy.

Then compare that to how many players by 1K$ tickets to buy and play a legacy deck and how often.

The most expensive legacy deck on mtggoldfish is 8cast at 763tix, most are around 500 and many are <400

There is not the population of players to make any of these things happen any more. Why?

Because of Arena. very clearly. The biggest drop of players happened at the exact same time as arena came out. Also doesn't vintage cube still get, like, thousands of active players at a time.

And not ONE TIME did Wizards EVER solicit my advice or listen to me about anything

Wizards literally has a survey for every set where they solicit advice from players...

Worth noting as well, that there used to be friendly leagues with flatter prizes for more formats and they shut down because they had so few players relative to the competitive leagues. Also when they tried to flatten the prizes for the pauper leagues there was a widely negative response from the community. Should be an indicator that most players don't want flatter prizing.
Also if you want to play constructed for lower stakes you can play in the open lobbies or the 2-player queues. If you want to play standard drafts for lower stakes you can play on arena.

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

pauper is not a fun format

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

Absurd way of evaluating anything. Even if you only evaluate active accounts there are tons of bots, alt accounts, etc. Also, again, vintage is cheaper than legacy and has a large cardpool overlap yet has vastly fewer players, giving everybody legacy decks wouldn't suddenly make everyone play legacy.

The potential of players who would move into a constructed format.

Called an estimate.

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

I think that the rental cards would actually make it easier for people to redeem sets.
Cards would be cheaper.

Arena sucks... I said it, the hand manipulation and matchmaking is obvious. Don't want to piss off any of the mods on this forum but I played for a month in 2020 and packed it up thereafter because the manipulation is so damming and frustrating.

It's attracting the newer players who get wowed by the visual effects.
To me, Magic will always have a board game look like mtgo.

 

[Efrtheropt]

pauper is not a fun format

Last paupergeddon had >500 players, so many people clearly enjoy it.
Also less fun than standard??

Called an estimate.

I know what it's called, I'm saying this is a terrible way of getting one. Why wouldn't you look at, for example, the number of people who buy the all-access pass when it's available, or the number of people who use existing card rental services? Your way only gives you the maximum number rather than what you could reasonably expect.

I think that the rental cards would actually make it easier for people to redeem sets.

Redeeming sets is not really that expensive for what it is You can buy and redeem a full set of WOE rn for 124$, which is less than the price of the 8 most expensive paper cards in the set.

Cards would be cheaper.

Yeah, cards outside of redemption would be basically worthless, and as a result so would all the prizes.

Arena sucks... I said it, the hand manipulation and matchmaking is obvious.

lol

 

[42en]

Why not have best of both worlds?

Competitive leagues with regular prize payouts and friendly leagues with lower entry fee and flatter price pay out for the more casual minded people (sort of like the FNM crowd who enjoy a friendly game, where you still can win something).

Flatter prize payout and lower entry fees in friendly leagues could maybe also encourage more brewy builds. I don't enjoy playing the same 4 or 5 net decks over and over again, but would actually like to play for prizes once in a while.

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

Last paupergeddon had >500 players, so many people clearly enjoy it.
Also less fun than standard??

I know what it's called, I'm saying this is a terrible way of getting one. Why wouldn't you look at, for example, the number of people who buy the all-access pass when it's available, or the number of people who use existing card rental services? Your way only gives you the maximum number rather than what you could reasonably expect.

Redeeming sets is not really that expensive for what it is You can buy and redeem a full set of WOE rn for 124$, which is less than the price of the 8 most expensive paper cards in the set.

Yeah, cards outside of redemption would be basically worthless, and as a result so would all the prizes.

lol

Because there forced to play it !!!!!! lol

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

Last paupergeddon had >500 players, so many people clearly enjoy it.
Also less fun than standard??

I know what it's called, I'm saying this is a terrible way of getting one. Why wouldn't you look at, for example, the number of people who buy the all-access pass when it's available, or the number of people who use existing card rental services? Your way only gives you the maximum number rather than what you could reasonably expect.

Redeeming sets is not really that expensive for what it is You can buy and redeem a full set of WOE rn for 124$, which is less than the price of the 8 most expensive paper cards in the set.

Yeah, cards outside of redemption would be basically worthless, and as a result so would all the prizes.

lol

Because a lot of people didn't know about the vip pass and it was only for 1 week.

Causual players dont log in weekly.

and a lot have went to arena... But this is how business works, the boss walks in and asks his minions "what kind of numbers can we expect?"
Then they do this and put it in a ppt lol
Plus MTGO could see an influx of players coming back to arena OR the word gets out on the street that you can get access to any cards and nowallofasuddn you get players who rarely play flooding back.

Who wants a playset of WOE? LOL
your examples are taken in a vacumn...

The prizes allow you to keep playing without buying more entry fees

Renting cards is a different mindset and way of approachinng the business.... never has been done at this magnitude.
IDK how the card bots work but I'm guessing youll need to front the money of the card.
Yea, I'm not putting 1K$ into a deck giving it to a rental bot and hope that they give me my money back when I return then.
I'd rather pay 30$ for a month play the shit out of it and wait until i have another opening where I can actually play.

I bet you could even sperate the players into two pools, the ones who rent cards and the ones who own cards and they only pay matches against each other depending on this status. Given enough time for word to get out, enough players would be renting cards that the queues would fire...

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

Why not have best of both worlds?

Competitive leagues with regular prize payouts and friendly leagues with lower entry fee and flatter price pay out for the more casual minded people (sort of like the FNM crowd who enjoy a friendly game, where you still can win something).

Flatter prize payout and lower entry fees in friendly leagues could maybe also encourage more brewy builds. I don't enjoy playing the same 4 or 5 net decks over and over again, but would actually like to play for prizes once in a while.

So generic question... if mtgo had lets call them "High stake Matches" Where the tournaments costs like 5X the normal entry fee, but the payout was far greater, how many people would play them ? Let's say entry fee is 100$.
How many people would play them?
My guess is not too many, at least not too often.

It's just looking at the other side of the coin.

The key is that casual players don't care about prizes they want to win but also pay x dollars for 2 hours of entertainment.
But that entertainment is limited to crappy new set drafting, and Pauper I guess....

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

Last paupergeddon had >500 players, so many people clearly enjoy it.
Also less fun than standard??

I know what it's called, I'm saying this is a terrible way of getting one. Why wouldn't you look at, for example, the number of people who buy the all-access pass when it's available, or the number of people who use existing card rental services? Your way only gives you the maximum number rather than what you could reasonably expect.

Redeeming sets is not really that expensive for what it is You can buy and redeem a full set of WOE rn for 124$, which is less than the price of the 8 most expensive paper cards in the set.

Yeah, cards outside of redemption would be basically worthless, and as a result so would all the prizes.

lol

At least we ageee arena sucks lol

Where are these rental bots?
I can't find them....

 

[Efrtheropt]

Because there forced to play it !!!!!! lol

No one is forced to play in a tournament, and paupergeddon doesn't even have particularly exceptional prizes relative to big events of other formats, it's like, a 10K, and the prizes are all in store credit.

Because a lot of people didn't know about the vip pass and it was only for 1 week.

Pretty sure it's usually for 2 weeks and the most recent one was for almost 3

Who wants a playset of WOE? LOL

A set of LCI is basically the same price, that's just roughly what sets go for.

The prizes allow you to keep playing without buying more entry fees

So you're just playing for the ability to play more? Why not just play in open rooms then?

How many people would play them?
My guess is not too many, at least not too often.

Because 100$ is a ridiculous price to charge for a tournament entry pretty much regardless of the prizes, that said the 64 player cube events were extremely successful and were the worst ev event on MTGO for anyone with a <50% winrate

At least we ageee arena sucks lol

not what I meant.

Where are these rental bots?
I can't find them....

I think Cardhoarder and Manatraders are the most well known ones, you can just go to their websites.

As for having both friendly and competitive leagues, daybreak has said before that only modern has a large enough playerbase to support two queues, otherwise the queue times take too long.

 

[AEMNIAMFLAREL]

No one is forced to play in a tournament, and paupergeddon doesn't even have particularly exceptional prizes relative to big events of other formats, it's like, a 10K, and the prizes are all in store credit.

Pretty sure it's usually for 2 weeks and the most recent one was for almost 3

A set of LCI is basically the same price, that's just roughly what sets go for.

So you're just playing for the ability to play more? Why not just play in open rooms then?

Because 100$ is a ridiculous price to charge for a tournament entry pretty much regardless of the prizes, that said the 64 player cube events were extremely successful and were the worst ev event on MTGO for anyone with a <50% winrate

not what I meant.

I think Cardhoarder and Manatraders are the most well known ones, you can just go to their websites.

As for having both friendly and competitive leagues, daybreak has said before that only modern has a large enough playerbase to support two queues, otherwise the queue times take too long.

Missing the points think bigger picture...

Pauper because it's the only constructed format they're willing to front the money for... aka forced to...