With Magic's continued growth, more and more sites are popping up that are devoted to one aspect or another of Magic. Whether it's collecting the cards, building decks, playing games, practicing drafts, or watching the business side of things, Magic has become a robust topic across the Internet.
We all know about Channel Fireball and Gatherer (and if you don't, boy, I'm just giving you all the goods today), but there are plenty of other sites out there that have a ton of useful resources for Magic players. Here are a couple I've found that I enjoy.
SupernovaBots - http://www.supernovabots.com
Online card pricing
SupernovaBots is a straightforward site that offers a quick reference for determining the potential sale (and purchase) price of a card. It's a nice thing to have open during a draft, to make sure you don't misjudge the resale value of a card. You'd feel silly if you passed on a foil Prime Speaker Zegana because you didn't realize it sells for 14 tickets (aka a whole draft). Plus, the site is in plain text, so it's easily searchable using Ctrl+F. Nice little utility.
MTGO Traders - http://www.mtgotraders.com
Online card pricing
When I was putting together my commander deck, MTGO Traders was a godsend. It was a quick, searchable reference that let me find out if a card was in my price range (generally under $0.10). Between it and Gatherer, I was able to assemble a fun deck for less than eight bucks. Turns out it was outmatched a lot of the time, but regardless, the site was a great resource. It's still a great way to find out what cards are selling for.
TappedOut.net - http://tappedout.net
Deck building, cube building, paper card pricing, mock drafts
TappedOut.net is a site that I still haven't gotten all I can get out of it yet. You can create an account and save decks, posting them for review for your friends or strangers. For any deck you create, there's a link on side that gives you an estimate on the cost of your deck, and offers a link to a custom shopping cart that already includes the cards from the deck. Granted, the link you get is way overpriced, but it's a nice enough feature at least as a quick reference.
You can also do simulated solo drafts of any set you like, as well as host drafts for other visitors of the site to join and draft. This can give you a better sense of how a real draft might go. The site is a real plethora of deck-building and practice utilities, and it's the kind of site an avid Magic player can get lost for several hours. You're welcome.
Bestiaire - http://draft.bestiaire.org/index.php
Mock drafts, card rankings
There used to be another website I used for mock drafts, but Wizards put the screws to whatever site that was. Now I use Bestiaire, and I'm enjoying it. It's super easy to start a mock draft, and the AI that's been developed for the mock drafts seems to be pretty effective. Additionally, the site accumulates draft data from each mock draft that takes place on the site, and holds a running ranking of each card in each set. You can go all the way back to Alpha and they've got draft ratings (though the ratings for newer sets are a little more current).
My one complaint about the system is that it doesn't let you see your drafted cards during each pick, only in between packs. So sometimes, if you can't remember all your picks, you can make small errors, especially early on when your deck doesn't yet have an identity. Still, the mocks are super fast, so you can get a bunch of practice in a short period of time.
MTG Goldfish - http://www.mtggoldfish.com
Card prices and tracking, deck building
I just recently discovered MTGO Goldfish, and I'm just blown away by it. The site tracks card prices across all sets for both online and paper Magic cards. And by tracks, I mean that it has data for the past several years on the progression of card prices. It's an amazing tool for those of us who are interested in the economic aspect of the game. And I absolutely, absolutely am.
The site also offers comprehensive reports on the decks that people are playing in large events. For example, you can click here to see the decks that found success in a recent Pauper event. It's also got lists of the most common decks, and the variances that people play. You can check out a sample here, where the site shows the card choices made for "Bant Hexproof" decks.
If you've got any further suggestions, post a comment son.
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Removing Magic's Barriers - New Player Drafts
Wizards of the Coast has recently been ramping up their efforts to attract new players. It's the right move, obviously; the more people who are using your product, the more money your company makes. So how does Wizards get people to start playing Magic Online, where people spend literally hundreds of dollars a month playing games? Well, you have to find a way to make the game accessible, both financially and as far as the gameplay. Magic is an insanely complex game; simplifying it for new players is vital.
This week's blog posts will discuss what Wizards has done to try to remove the barriers to entry for the game. Today's post will focus on New Player drafts.
In order to play the official Magic The Gathering: Online, a player has to pay $10 to set up an online account. This account gives you access to the online world of MTG, which includes the opportunity to enter drafts, purchase packs of cards, trade with other players, and develop your own collection, from which you can play recreationally with your friends, or with players around the world.
New players receive a starter kit, a sort of "welcome gift," which includes some cards from the current core set (Magic releases a new core set every year, and new expansion sets every few months) and some tickets, which can be used to enter events.
Previously, the welcome gift 2 regular Event Tickets and 4 New Player Tickets. An Event Ticket costs $1 to purchase from the Wizards online store, and is used for entry into all MTGO events. New Player Tickets are only available via the starter kit, and are used to enter special New Player events. A New Player draft costs 1 New Player Ticket at 1 Event Ticket. These are phantom events, which means that the cards drafted in these events do not go into your online card collection. Additionally, while a normal event would have several prizes of 1-8 Magic 2014 (M14) packs depending on the format, a New Player event offers only a single M14 pack to the winner of an event, and no prize to the other three participants. Still, the chance to play in the drafts and possibly get a little reward out of it was enough to draw me in; I ended up buying three different accounts so that I could get the New Player draft opportunities.
Well, things have changed...quite a bit actually. Now, each player who creates a new account gets 5 normal Event Tickets and 20 New Player Tickets. This means that a new user can play five drafts at no additional cost, and can pay one dollar per draft for up to fifteen additional drafts. This gives a new player the chance to get a LOT of playtime for a fairly reasonable price; if the player elected to play through all 20 New Player drafts, he or she would spend $25 between the cost of creating a new account ($10) and the additional tickets ($15).
Won't you take me to...VALUE TOWN!
Seriously. This new setup has two distinctly exciting aspects. First, to the player, you're getting a chance for a full draft experience five times from those first ten dollars spent on the new account. Five drafts should be enough for most players to find out if they like the idea. The second part is a little more sneaky, and a creative business move. This method creates multiple nudges for the user to make a purchase from the in-game store. If you win one of the New Player drafts, you get an M14 pack. If you want to play in a real draft, you need a total of three packs as well as two Event Tickets, all readily available for purchase from the store. Plus, if you liked the experience but you're not sure if you're ready for the real thing, you can always just buy a few more Event Tickets and use up some of your 20 New Player tickets to get into more drafts. Either way, you're pulling people towards making purchases from the store, and that removes one of the bigger barriers to entry for the system: that nervous feeling you get when you're spending money. It's a good value, so what's a couple more dollars? And boom, they've got you.
Let me be clear on this, though: I have no problem with Wizards' move here. First, as I said, I was already buying new accounts to get the draft time, so this just makes it way more reasonably priced for me to do so. Second, I think Magic would appeal to a larger audience of people if they just found ways to get past some of these barriers (hence this feature on the blog). And I really do want Magic to become more mainstream; my end goal is to eventually own and run a game store, and that's obviously easier if more people are playing Magic.
What do you think of the new system? Love it? Hate it? Don't care? Let me know in the comments.
This week's blog posts will discuss what Wizards has done to try to remove the barriers to entry for the game. Today's post will focus on New Player drafts.
In order to play the official Magic The Gathering: Online, a player has to pay $10 to set up an online account. This account gives you access to the online world of MTG, which includes the opportunity to enter drafts, purchase packs of cards, trade with other players, and develop your own collection, from which you can play recreationally with your friends, or with players around the world.
New players receive a starter kit, a sort of "welcome gift," which includes some cards from the current core set (Magic releases a new core set every year, and new expansion sets every few months) and some tickets, which can be used to enter events.
Previously, the welcome gift 2 regular Event Tickets and 4 New Player Tickets. An Event Ticket costs $1 to purchase from the Wizards online store, and is used for entry into all MTGO events. New Player Tickets are only available via the starter kit, and are used to enter special New Player events. A New Player draft costs 1 New Player Ticket at 1 Event Ticket. These are phantom events, which means that the cards drafted in these events do not go into your online card collection. Additionally, while a normal event would have several prizes of 1-8 Magic 2014 (M14) packs depending on the format, a New Player event offers only a single M14 pack to the winner of an event, and no prize to the other three participants. Still, the chance to play in the drafts and possibly get a little reward out of it was enough to draw me in; I ended up buying three different accounts so that I could get the New Player draft opportunities.
Well, things have changed...quite a bit actually. Now, each player who creates a new account gets 5 normal Event Tickets and 20 New Player Tickets. This means that a new user can play five drafts at no additional cost, and can pay one dollar per draft for up to fifteen additional drafts. This gives a new player the chance to get a LOT of playtime for a fairly reasonable price; if the player elected to play through all 20 New Player drafts, he or she would spend $25 between the cost of creating a new account ($10) and the additional tickets ($15).
Won't you take me to...VALUE TOWN!
Seriously. This new setup has two distinctly exciting aspects. First, to the player, you're getting a chance for a full draft experience five times from those first ten dollars spent on the new account. Five drafts should be enough for most players to find out if they like the idea. The second part is a little more sneaky, and a creative business move. This method creates multiple nudges for the user to make a purchase from the in-game store. If you win one of the New Player drafts, you get an M14 pack. If you want to play in a real draft, you need a total of three packs as well as two Event Tickets, all readily available for purchase from the store. Plus, if you liked the experience but you're not sure if you're ready for the real thing, you can always just buy a few more Event Tickets and use up some of your 20 New Player tickets to get into more drafts. Either way, you're pulling people towards making purchases from the store, and that removes one of the bigger barriers to entry for the system: that nervous feeling you get when you're spending money. It's a good value, so what's a couple more dollars? And boom, they've got you.
Let me be clear on this, though: I have no problem with Wizards' move here. First, as I said, I was already buying new accounts to get the draft time, so this just makes it way more reasonably priced for me to do so. Second, I think Magic would appeal to a larger audience of people if they just found ways to get past some of these barriers (hence this feature on the blog). And I really do want Magic to become more mainstream; my end goal is to eventually own and run a game store, and that's obviously easier if more people are playing Magic.
What do you think of the new system? Love it? Hate it? Don't care? Let me know in the comments.
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