MTGO Treasure Chest System is unsustainable: an open letter to Daybreak

[timmytaplands]

Hello,

I'm writing to Daybreak about ongoing concerns around the MTGO Treasure Chests, their role in the MTGO economy / prizing system, and their recent decline in value. I'm concerned that the large decline in Treasure Chest value is a result of changes coming from Daybreak's management of the system and I want to voice those concerns here. I'm not alone in this and I know that many players are thinking about this as well. Hoping this thread can serve as an open dialogue with Daybreak to let them know players feel this is a problem that needs to be resolved.

Here is a price graph of the value of Treasure Chests. The blue vertical line represents the Daybreak transition in October 2022. Since then, Treasure Chests have lost between 15-20% of their value depending on the calculation.

https://imgur.com/a/L6ZlVtL

In my opinion, this dip is notable because Treasure Chests have traded in a relatively narrow range since their introduction in 2016. It may be just a coincidence that this occurred around a year into Daybreak's management of the client. However, I want to point out some key ways in which I feel the Treasure Chest system is potentially being mismanaged. If left unchanged, this could threaten the long-term health and viability of MTGO.

First, why do Treasure Chests have value at all? After all, Treasure Chests can't be drafted like boosers. Chests are not legal to be played in a game of Magic. They have value because they represent claims to future goods and services (cards and events) provided by Daybreak to the players. A decline in the value of chests represents a decrease in the player base's confidence of Daybreak to deliver on those claims.

In the past, Treasure Chests were considered the primary vector to introduce new-to-MTGO cards onto the client, particularly for Commander and Eternal format cards. Chests were worth opening because they had exclusive cards that players wanted. Over time, we seem to have moved away from that system. The ensuing result is that players are less inclined to open chests. Let's dig deeper into that.

Problem 1: Lack of Exclusives / Products Saved for the MTGO Store
There's a large backlog of cards which need to be added to MTGO. Daybreak is aware of the issue and has made progress on this. However, I've noticed that many of the key releases in the last year are being held back from Chests and made only purchasable in MTGO's in-game store in cash.

For the avoidance of doubt, here's some examples of what I'm talking about:
March of the Machines Aftermath (later added to Chests)
Ravnica Old-Border Shock Lands
Warhammer 40K and other Commander Decks

In a way, the decision to hold these items for the MTGO store makes sense. These cards require development time in order to be added MTGO, and resources are being diverted away from other parts of the client to add them. Daybreak needs to recoup development cost (and also just make money) in order justifying adding these cards. However, by holding back key releases like this to only the MTGO store, Daybreak is putting the value proposition of Treasure Chests at risk. I would argue that this is prioritizing short-term profits over the long-term health and viability of MTGO. Sure, that's Daybreak's perogative and maybe in their business interest to do so. However, understand that there is a trade-off in doing this, and I would argue we're seeing that trade-off play out in Chest prices.

Problem 2: Over-Distribution of Chests as Prizes
This is an issue I know Daybreak is already aware of and has made measures to fix. I still think it's worth pointing out and memorializing here.

Daybreak has made efforts to boost event EV and prizes. They also re-introduced 64-player drafts this year which were a hit, especially in the beginning. In general players love these changes.
The issue is that Daybreak went about boosting EV primarily by increasing chest payouts. 64-player events also paid out primarily in chests.

Let's talk about 64-player events first. My impression is that these events have gone through a lot of changes into how often they will be featured and what kinds of prizes they should pay. This makes me wonder if Daybreak really understands the issue or if they're just trying to turn knobs and see what works.

In my opinion, the issue boils down to this: Cube 64-player events pay out chests as prizes but do not accept them as entry. In general, Limited on MTGO has always had a safeguard in that it pays out in prizes that can be used to draft. In a way, that sets a floor on the value of the prizes. It's not perfect, and boosters can lose value too, but at the very least drafters can use them and have a reason to hold onto them. Now enter Vintage Cube. MTGO has made a giant shift towards Vintage Cube since the Daybreak transition. At this point it seems like Vintage Cube will be MTGO's primary limited offering going forward. The big difference here is that Vintage Cube is phantom and doesn't use boosters. Thus we don't have a great option to pay out as prizes. Daybreak decided to use Treasure Chests as prizes for lack of better options. The problem is that this is never how Limited prizing on MTGO has worked, and you're now paying out the same prizes that Constructed players get and competing with their interests. It creates more treasure chests than the market can absorb.

Vintage Cube could have its own booster on MTGO. Obviously you shouldn't be able to crack the booster and open a Black Lotus. There should be something differentiated from TCs that Cube people can value and hold onto. If not, just understand that there is an issue here, and the issue is that the prizes and entry are unlinked compared to normal limited.

I've also heard of Treasure Chests being distributed as prizes for streamer events and promotional stuff for MTGO. I have no issue with this on principle, except to restate that Treasure Chests need to be backed by items that players value and they need to be distributed in proportion to the amount being absorbed (opened) by the market. Otherwise treasure chests are just PucaPoints--worth something today, maybe not tomorrow.

My proposed solutions:
1) Add Cash Prizes to MTGO or consider changes to prizing
I'm aware that there are legal and probably technical issues to adding cash prize events to MTGO. If there were a time to revisit those issues, this is the time. Daybreak has made some noise about trying to grow the player base using things like the creator program. I think the introduction of cash events could completely revitalize MTGO. Alternative offerings exist within WOTC's own ecosystem (Arena). If Arena can hold events with cash prizes MTGO should be able to as well.

2) Add Chest Exclusives that Players Want

3) Make Chest Contents and / or Prizes Skewed Towards Redeemable Sets

I'm going to cut it there because this is already really long. I hope Daybreak takes this situation seriously and understands that there is a limit to how low Treasure Chests can go before it threatens other aspects of MTGO's competitive system. This is a major issue that tournament players and market participants (bot chains etc) are concerned about. Many agree this is a problem but may not agree about what needs to be done. I'm happy to expand on any of these points or my proposed solutions here on the forums or on discord. Thanks for reading and please do what's right for MTGO.

Sincerely,

Timmytaplands

 

[PettDan]

Very well put and many interesting suggestions. I think an additional solution to preserve chest prices is to add more valuable cards in the treasure chest updates, and we'll see soon if that's being done (chest update coming this week, perhaps even today). As an example, I was surprised to find Goblin Welder added to the chest during the last update, being a card that usually fluctuates around 3-6 tickets iirc, there are many prohibitively expensive cards that could have been added instead. However, I'm not sure if this solution alone will be enough to preserve the TC price.

 

[JaceTheBodySculptor]

Here's a simple, easy to implement solution:

-For all future Standard-legal boosters, add an option to right-click and consume the booster to add 40 Play Points to your account.
-Return to using boosters as primary prizes.

That's it. That's all you have to do. No messing with real currency. No more time spent curating chest contents. This is all you need.

Boosters used to be all we needed for prizes and we can return to that again. Treasure Chests were originally introduced described as a way to fix a problem with the booster economy. Sometimes boosters would crater in value, and Constructed players would then be disincentivized from playing until the next set released. Treasure Chests were touted as a means to stability. Now the chests themselves are failing to maintain value.

But we don't need Treasure Chests! There's another way to make boosters (and thus prize support) stable. A clean, simple way. Just let all new boosters be opened for 40 Play Points. This way, they can still be traded amongst players for Tickets when a player prefers tix. They will always have a decent amount of value because they will always be worth 40 PP. You mentioned Cube draft specifically. Think of how easy it would be to enter with Play Points, win normal (normal! nothing new! so easy to implement!) booster packs, then enter again with PP you redeemed from right clicking your boosters and selecting "Open As 40 Play Points)". The same goes with any Constructed event.

Think about it!

 

[ManaDrainThis]

Here's a simple, easy to implement solution:

-For all future Standard-legal boosters, add an option to right-click and consume the booster to add 40 Play Points to your account.
-Return to using boosters as primary prizes.

That's it. That's all you have to do. No messing with real currency. No more time spent curating chest contents. This is all you need.

Boosters used to be all we needed for prizes and we can return to that again. Treasure Chests were originally introduced described as a way to fix a problem with the booster economy. Sometimes boosters would crater in value, and Constructed players would then be disincentivized from playing until the next set released. Treasure Chests were touted as a means to stability. Now the chests themselves are failing to maintain value.

But we don't need Treasure Chests! There's another way to make boosters (and thus prize support) stable. A clean, simple way. Just let all new boosters be opened for 40 Play Points. This way, they can still be traded amongst players for Tickets when a player prefers tix. They will always have a decent amount of value because they will always be worth 40 PP. You mentioned Cube draft specifically. Think of how easy it would be to enter with Play Points, win normal (normal! nothing new! so easy to implement!) booster packs, then enter again with PP you redeemed from right clicking your boosters and selecting "Open As 40 Play Points)". The same goes with any Constructed event.

Think about it!

I don’t see how this would solve anything, but I can pretty easily see how it would make things a lot worse.

First, Treasure Chests are utilized to inject high demand cards into the MTGO ecosystem. The curation process for TCs is very important for this reason…to ensure first and foremost that high demand cards are accessible and not too expensive for players. It serves as a mechanism to regulate supply and demand. Eliminating TCs and the curation process would leave the economy bereft of a significant number of highly demanded cards, and thus exacerbate price fluctuations, and totally disrupt MTGO’s economy.

Second, there are hundreds of different types of booster packs on MTGO, representing hundreds of different sets and formats. You want to effectively make them all equally worth 40 play points (and thus $4)?? This is…insane. It would make low value sets worth much more than their market value and high value sets worth much less than their market value. Also, 90% of the packs available on MTGO are from sets that were released many years in the past. You can’t draft with them. There are no events for them. And thus demand for those packs is extremely low. So cards from those sets would never enter MTGO’s economy under your plan.

I’m all for thinking outside the box about new and innovative ways to make things better. But solutions like this are clear nonstarters…this would devastate MTGO’s economy, not improve it.

 

[JaceTheBodySculptor]

I said "future packs", not do it retroactively to all existing packs. Please do not denounce an idea based on a misunderstanding of it.

I also did not say that you have to completely eliminate Treasure Chests, you can keep some of them if you think it's the best system for delivering odd versions of cards.

Actually, now that I think of it, here's a similar idea, again very easy to implement:

-Add an option on all Treasure Chests to right-click and "Open as 30 Play Points".

Same strategy, in bad times when the curation list isn't worth much, players can at least recoup some PP, and this should keep the tradeable tix value of the Chest high enough to incentivize players. In good times, more players will choose to crack the chests and receive cards. This would be good for the economy because Chests would be converted to PP more when their contents are not in demand and opened more when their cards' supplies are needed.

I hope you get the general idea. Rewarding tix raises legal issues. PP fix that. So put PP in an envelope - boosters, chests, if you want to get silly you could also invent a tradeable "40 Play Points" pack that does nothing else - have those objects tradeable to satisfy players who want tradeable prizes, and use these as prizes to stabilize the economy and ensure event prizes are always worth enough.