IF the tournament story is accurate to what actually happened, then this is absolutely infuriating. not only that the player got match-lossed (?) despite not being at fault at all, but also the fact that they were instantly shut down when asking the head judge for clarification. this trend of "we made a call, that's it, go fuck yourself" amongst judges is absolutely awful - yes, I get they don't want drama surrounding some calls they make, but disallowing ANY form of conversation is not the way to go.
There are judges who take the line of escalation seriously they just never seem to be around during situations like this. Dave from JudgingFTW has talked about the process of escalating a floor judge's call and how in theory it's supposed to play out and at what point the buck stops. Judges are supposed to keep in mind they're human, it's impossible to memorize the entirety of the comprehensive rules and recall every minute detail from memory, and people get shit wrong sometimes. Especially when people paid and traveled to be there you should do everything to *not* take a player's desire to escalate your judge call personally. If your reasoning is sound and the player is unable to provide a convincing counter to the higher judge then you are retroactively justified in your call. If they overturn it you made a mistake. Happens to all of us.
There actually ARE "new cards" in mystery booster 2. Gavin confirmed in a short that some of the cards only in video games are getting paper printings in this set
I'm a former judge, but I try to follow what's going on locally. I'm in Finland and here we have our own association for judges and that seems to be the direction overall. The problem is that there hasn't been any requirements for a while. I've heard that certain players use this to their advantage. They travel to the RCQs or whatever they are called now in order to cheat somewhere where it will not be punished.
Note that I'm not pointing a finger to how this works in Finland, where the tradition of judging is still strong even if the pandemic definitely affected it.
Seth, that paint by numbers mtg is a million dollar idea, that’s sounds so fun!!! I haven’t painted or drawn in forever but that sounds so cool and approachable!
I think the main problem with that would be how small the card art window is. I don't know how many laypeople would want to have to paint with a magnifying glass and a detail brush.
@@seandun7083 It’d be better for paint ing, for sure, but then you cant really play it (in a practical manner anyways). Wizards probably doesn’t want to encourage painting on cards anyways lest they train up a new generation of proxy artists. 😅
My wife loves color by numbers and a lot of the art on my magic cards. It’d free money and a new demo for wizards. A win win decision for consumer and corpo, so no way they’ll make it.
If I ever got a match loss for this, I would request that the head judge give me something in writing so I can have physical evidence of the situation.
Loved the conversation on Secret Lair. The print to demand is the best way to move forward with this. Bots will always ruin a defined print run. To correlate your conversation about Gen Con most of the games are crowd funded and this whole community knows that it typically takes 1 - 1.5 years for the product to arrive. However, there is consistent updates from the producer speaking to the status of the product. Keep up the great work and love the content !!!
Unsets biggest issue is that Magic’s design space has expanded so far that it’s really hard to do a full Unset anymore, and works better a few cards in the set that is basically “chaos draft” the set. Playtest cards have the advantage that the “wacky” cards don’t have to fit a sets central theme. Edit: Also the fact that the first two Un-sets were meant to be used in a chaos draft, while the most recent two Un-sets are meant to be drafted by themselves
RE: Monty Python Secret Lair. Limit sales to a certain number per household. (Or address/P.O. Box) Say, two per address. Scalpers would then, at best, be purchasing four. (Two for work, two for home.)
Limited is the most boring way to play magic, it only appeals to people who don't like high power formats or don't have the cards to keep up with the current meta, or people who want to try and make profit by winning, it also makes for terrible content, so its not surprising.
@@zephiel1932 lol what a garbage take. Limited actually requires you evaluate how good a card is and tests how well you can construct a deck. 99 percent of people playing constructed just chase the meta by net decking the most recent deck that performed well in the last competition.
@@zephiel1932 I disagree with it being the most boring way, but I guess that part is a matter of opinion. As a frequently lapsed player, I find making a deck on the spot quite a fun experience new cards and among the best way to bring people into the game. I agree that is not even close to high power but I do think successfully playing limited requires understanding the meta.
A hybrid Secret Lair system seems the best option. A bunch of pre-prepped kits that are first come first served but then allow for print on demand after. So if you want it ASAP you chase the queue but you can still get it if there's a rush buy and you just need to wait.
And they can still appeal to the investor crowd by serializing the first come first served kits. That way the scalpers will still buy in and the rest of us can get the cool art we want at a decent price.
That’s a great idea! It’s worked well in Yugioh where people are hyped for 1st edition cards that have a boosted appeal, but they don’t punish budget players with a bit more patience to get the same game pieces later
I'm so glad Richard is thinking of the hybrid SL system. It would solve so many of the issues that exist under the limited quantity available. Maximizes FOMO for those who want it immediately, while not punishing those who weren't awake or available to sit at their computer immediately upon a drop release. Might even discourage bots and scalpers because you have the option to pay 2x as much on ebay or just simply wait 6 months
In an alternate universe: Announcing Mystery Booster 2! Available only at your LGS as a prize for Standard FNM! I'd build a Standard deck *today.* *sigh*
I am a UW artifact believer in standard. These mono black and orzov discard decks are everywhere and artifacts just runs it over with our insane amounts of on board value effects and huge card draw effects.
There is a huge demand for unanswered FishMail Secret Lair questions. They should pre-answer a set number of questions (that haven't been asked yet) and then put the overage into a queue that will be shipped 6 months from now.
A friend of mine was one of the judges at Gencon and released her tournament report if you guys were interested in it. The sum of it is, there was rumors of it going on several times, until a player told a judge that they had been asked to concede in return for getting a percentage of the other players winnings, and had accepted it unknowing that wagering isn't allowed. That considered waging and the rules state in it that using items outside of the game to determine the winner is against the rules. It's was a tough call for the judges but I think they handled things the best they could in a bad spot
WOTC once again confirming they don't care at all about the rest of the planet that isn't in US/Canada or Europe. Most of the planet does not have Magic conventions.
As someone who went to magiccon Chicago and found out that all the events were soldout. After being able to join any game at PAX. I would be pissed to find I couldn't play an exclusive set. They should let everyone play these because they are the best "magic" experence left.
I don't think the judges need to be talking about this situation, but they should make a clear, public statement about equity shares so everyone knows the rules. I agree with Richard that Magic doesn't want to get involved in grey areas. Just ban all equity anywhere. Prize splits only in the finals.
You just argued against yourself your saying not equity shares prize splitting is exactly that. The only difference is this term there is a single card being won i.e. you cant just split the cash 50/50. Also prize splitting is the same concept, it is also against the rules just as much as you are trying to manipulate the outcome of the event.
I feel ever more alone in my love for Un sets...I understand everything that left sour flavors on people's minds from it..but it's still holding a very special place in my heart. I'm actually running an Unfinity commander draft at the LGS in the next month or so ❤
It's more than just printing some cardboard for Wizards. Indeed, only printing 4 cards is likely more expensive than normal cards. They still have to commission the artwork which is likely the same cost regardless of how many copies are made. Then the actual printing is likely much more for only a couple cards than a whole set as there is likely a discount for scale production.
Printing 1 single extra sheet at the end of thousands and thousands of sheets is still dirt cheap. Don't fool yourself into believing it's some special financial hit to do this.
After watching judges DQ people over proxies that were real cards and cost them hundreds of dollars, the one guy ~2k, I feel the sentiment is pretty negative towards judges. Going out of their way to hunt down proxies while people are shuffle-cheating and intentionally missing triggers to cheat.
@@Zarbon000 most of the cards people proxy wizards doesn’t make money on… the people still buy in-print cards and support wizards. And what has been created now are people who have their opponents deck-checked on the suspicion of proxies which loses the tournament down and creates negativity. I think you missed the point where the people were dq’ed for proxies that were real cards… imagine getting kicked out of top 8, losing $1500-5k because someone doesn’t believe you have a serialized card… great atmosphere. The person bought your fancy collector boosters and they are rewarded with having several thousand dollars stolen from them.
@@FearOgre SCG Cincinnati had: 1. someone disqualified in top 8 for using a fake card sold to him by a vendor on site. Causing him to lose a guaranteed 1300+ in prizes. 2. Someone was disqualified for serialized wurmcoil engines that the judge said were fake; and they used a loupe to determine were real… actually got a loupe out even after TOAMagic told them they were real. 3. Seattle Magiccon at pax: player dq’ed for fake cards. Vendor said they were real so the judge spent 45 minutes constructing an obtuse argument on how his deck was marked… on random cards and random bent sleeves… that was normal wear and tear on sleeves of a tournament sponsor… This year has been full of crap calls and judge issues. We had a person disqualified from a large tournament over a proxy that a judge assigned for the event due to the card being foil-warped. The head judge was asked to leave after an incident and one of the lower judges then disqualified the guy saying the card was not recognized. 200+ person event with a 10k prize pool.
I think the solution for the Secret Lair issue is if you did something like foils are limited quantity with maybe a limited quantity of already printed and ready to go non foils, but then keep it open for the full duration to do print to demand on the non foils, you both create the scarcity and hype to sell right away while allowing people to trickle in later and still get the cool stuff, it is just non foil and takes longer to get to you.
I think if we are talking about good in-jokes on Mystery Booster cards, Demonic Consultation has the flavor text of "Abandon Hope", which if you've ever played or played against the card on MTGO you'll recognize the reference.
Giving away cards as prizes only solves the issue for higher up tournaments with VERY exclusive cards. You can see this with qualifiers and showdowns. The top8 prize is worth 60 bucks (local currency). Then, you slap it as the only prize to the top8. You pay 60 for entrance, and now every weekend you flood the market with new deaths shadow to the point it is now worth like 8 bucks. Add to that giving modern players non-modern legal or playable promos, giving standard players modern cards... they ALWAYS mess up giving cards as prizes, it should just be money OR booster (you sell or crack if want. Your call)
Equity, in this case, isn't betting against yourself, since you want to win for the bigger % of the prize. It's a buffer against getting shafted by the uneven prize curve. This is the exact same as a prize split, just different terms. Wizards should go all one way or the other. Either no draws, peize splitting, etc. or let players redistribute prizes in whatever manner they see fit. Its silly to have a judge make a call on something so nebulous that relies heavily on personal opinion/morals instead of defined rules. The fact that it was a person outside the game that caused it makes it even more ridiculous.
Were the mystery booster playtest cards this time around actually all taken from custom magic card creation on the internet? Also I find it hard to look up a list of them somewhere, Scryfall hasn't compiled MB2
selling equity is quite literally the opposite of betting on yourself. its technically someone else betting on you. you are less likely to throw games because your ability to sell your equity in future tournaments is based on your ability to win said tournaments. i dont see how magic can allow intentional draws or friendly scoops because hey if we draw we both advance and if we lose we dont but then say you cant sell a stake in your own win. its much closer to be sponsored to play than gambling.
This^ like both Crim and Richard didn't really understand what was going on. As with this kind of "betting" you are just trying to limit your losses if in the tournament just exactly like people who prize split. The main difference is it still matters who wins. It is also the fault of the tournament prize structure this even happened in the first place. As you can't exactly prize split a single card at least not without a lot of trust. What also makes it worse is judges really shouldn't be the ones enforcing these kinds of policies. They are there to prevent cheating and people gaining an advantage, that wasn't happening in the slightest. His friend was outside of the tournament so any talk unless it is game advice or info is irrelevant. Like all this does is make it more smart to just always lie to the judge about what you are talking about. As if they can give you a match loss over this kind of conversation people will become incentivized to lie about what they were discussing to avoid the possibility of a loss/DQ.
If you could simply buy the box itself with no extras as your "convention in a box", that would be a neat option, especially if they kept the window for it open longer. I don't care much for the extras they put in to raise the price.
Richards hybrid system for secret lairs sounds pretty good to me 👍 ... Limiting it to one item per secret lair would be bad though, as not working with basic land secret lairs and for me at least you only have some of the lairs you enjoy and its most likely not 3 of the drop ... So you buy one double ... Or you want a playset...
Important point about not wanting to call judges it happens all the time . Say if someone flips there top card after there courser of kruphix dies a lot of the times it would just be it’s whatever just shuffle . If u call a judge it’s a warning for both players probably
11:30 Unfinity and Mystery Booster 1 traded a few cards back and forth. They're very similar and WOTC is aware of that. MB1 also goes for a different tone, and that one really seems to be more liked.
Do the current way and allow a week for people to put in orders and the late ones get there order in 6 months. Scalpers will also be less likely to buy a bunch because they will print more thus eventually reducing the need for that week of (to be printed) orders.
21:49 well one reason is because buy ins where staking is common are 10k and up and the buy in for a magic tournament is $50. Also the variance in poker is higher than magic both in terms of outcome and by number of variables (full table). So it becomes financially viable and almost necessary when to show routine monthly income rather than a year of 300k then two years of net loss.
You guys should consider having Judging Ftw as a guest! He’s a very nice and player-considerate L2 (I believe), and he is pretty knowledge in regards to the state of judging.
WotC makes Assassin's Creed, a product that should have been secret lair or commander decks, as a sealed product that nobody wanted and that couldn't even be drafted. Now MB2, a product designed to be played in a sealed format and loved by fans, is only available at a convention? What an excellent business strategy.
If Wizards is at all serious about MTG not being associated with gambling, they should really stamp out equity purchasing- but don't disqualify the guy who is explicitly not doing that.
Richard said that WotC underestimated how many people wanted the Monty Python SLD. Is my memory wrong or doesn't every single SLD sell out in a matter of days or even hours? I could swear the last ten-ish SLD's got a video from the Prof in the sense of "here's my analysis of this SLD, even though it sold out already by the time this video was done". I've heard it two to three times at least that a friend of mine wanted to buy a certain SLD but they sold out in the first 12 hours or less and so on.
As Seth pointed out. I dont think Wizards will care about some tournaments, they dont care enough to support the millions of people in the world who speak Portuguese as an example. If they don't want to support Brazil and Portugal (and some other countries) I don't think they'll spend a few hundred thousand dollars of their 1 Billion to fix things for about 100 people who compete at that level.
I've always liked standard and used to grind tournaments but it doesn't feel worth it to play with decks costing so much and dealing with rotation so to commander I go
Y'all should see fighting games when it comes to prizing. In the FGC you pretty much just play for bragging rights Tournaments with thousands of entrants and the winner gets like 3k lol
Why cant the whole player base get access to mystery booster 2?? Seems just as predatory as recent secret lair model where its limited supply, limited window to buy, and this will be a $200+ box unfortunately so its not budget friendly for most. Unfinity should be the con exclusive, not specialized reprints that could have been special commander decks; one precon full white border and one precon full future sight border.
Based on the judge story, it sounds like a judge hopped up on authority. "What i say goes, nothing you can say changes it" is like the most stick up your own kind of response.
The difference, to my eye, is that Unsets are what Rosewater and co think is funny. These seem to reflect what (some of) the playerbase think is funny.
Betting on yourself isn’t match fixing because you still have to win. Buying equity of a competitor is similar to better on your opponent to winning but still not the same
Selling equity is like being sponsored, not like betting on yourself. They pay for part of your entry, so you pay them part of your winnings. How do you stop this from happening from a tournament standpoint? Easy answer, you don't, because its insanely murky to police at all
If the events happened as described by the person who was DQ'ed, then that's very ripe for being exploited. Let's say that I'm in a semi-final against Seth, and I know that I'm a massive underdog. I then have one of my friends walk up to Seth, ensuring that a judge is in hearing range, and have that friend ask Seth "are you willing to do an equity split?" Bam - Seth is DQ'ed for that, and I sail through to the finals. That's IF the events happened as described by the person who was DQ'ed.
Waiting for cards is 10x better than waiting for some more time. It's a secret lair, you most likely are not getting them because you need them in 3 days for a tourney. Go back to the old system 101%. You do not want to make everyone into a scalper because who does not want to flip money.
I remember back when I played, that everyone hated the white border cards…. It’s come full circle now… they’ve made white borders so random and rare that ppl want them now… I still dislike it…
Players need to start suing for these kinds of damages done to them. Sure they may end up getting banned by WOTC, but it would send a clear message to all judges to get their assertions to be consistent and fair
@@TheEvolver311and I get that for a grace period after the inciting incident, but if other parties refuse to come forward and offer their side of the story, is the whole world just supposed to remain neutral forever?
@@Jlizard27 um no it isn't. And as far as we can tell the player did get a game loss for a legitimate reason, you are not allowed to engage in collusion for monetary gain with other players. He got ruled out for that. That is the only certain thing we know, they are mad because they asked for a exception for themselves and it was denied. So what are we even talking about taking action on? That this one person should have to rules ignored for them just because? It sounds a lot like how Richard put it, it's like getting ticket for going 2 over when you know half of everyone driving is speeding and probably way worse but raw deal you are the one who got caught.
It should be completely banned/unacceptable to sell/swap equity or prize money amongst players or outsiders. The fact that these conversations are going on is a real competitive problem. As someone who follows lots of sports/esports (but not Poker) this would be a huge scandal nearly everywhere else.
It's this kind of stuff that makes me not want to bother going to these exclusive tournaments. How would the judge know they're talking about Magic...at all? They don't. "My friend who isn't playing and is offering no unfair outside help is talking about some unrelated equity split thing that has no outcome on the results of the tournament. I have no idea I'm busy please stop bothering me during my match." >You have been DQ'd for talking about finance while at a Magic tournament Didn't they do away with the judge's program? Did they bring it back? In no situation other than someone committing a crime or getting violent should anyone receiving a judge call be denied an appeal to a higher judge. It completely defeats the purpose of their position if they're too stupid or lazy to do their job.
"offering something in exchange for a result is a DQ"...Somebody tell the cEDH crowd!
CEDH is a multiplayer social sub format not created or run by wizards but by an external group. It doesn’t have the same rules.
IF the tournament story is accurate to what actually happened, then this is absolutely infuriating. not only that the player got match-lossed (?) despite not being at fault at all, but also the fact that they were instantly shut down when asking the head judge for clarification. this trend of "we made a call, that's it, go fuck yourself" amongst judges is absolutely awful - yes, I get they don't want drama surrounding some calls they make, but disallowing ANY form of conversation is not the way to go.
There are judges who take the line of escalation seriously they just never seem to be around during situations like this. Dave from JudgingFTW has talked about the process of escalating a floor judge's call and how in theory it's supposed to play out and at what point the buck stops. Judges are supposed to keep in mind they're human, it's impossible to memorize the entirety of the comprehensive rules and recall every minute detail from memory, and people get shit wrong sometimes. Especially when people paid and traveled to be there you should do everything to *not* take a player's desire to escalate your judge call personally. If your reasoning is sound and the player is unable to provide a convincing counter to the higher judge then you are retroactively justified in your call. If they overturn it you made a mistake. Happens to all of us.
There actually ARE "new cards" in mystery booster 2. Gavin confirmed in a short that some of the cards only in video games are getting paper printings in this set
Wait, that old Sega game card? Damn deep cut.
@@KellyUnekis yeeeep
@@CodenameFuyuki hopefully they get reprinted somewhere else.
A printed copy of Oracle of the Alpha is pretty sick. Are we going to see Black Lotus tokens then? XD
I'm a former judge, but I try to follow what's going on locally. I'm in Finland and here we have our own association for judges and that seems to be the direction overall.
The problem is that there hasn't been any requirements for a while. I've heard that certain players use this to their advantage. They travel to the RCQs or whatever they are called now in order to cheat somewhere where it will not be punished.
Note that I'm not pointing a finger to how this works in Finland, where the tradition of judging is still strong even if the pandemic definitely affected it.
Limited is the best format for me who LOVES building decks , ive also put TIME into becoming good at limited. I love it
The walled behind a convention experience makes it a US only thing.
Also the festival in a box last time sold out instantly from bots.
Yeah they will absolutely not be obtainable for the normal person which really sucks
Seth, that paint by numbers mtg is a million dollar idea, that’s sounds so fun!!! I haven’t painted or drawn in forever but that sounds so cool and approachable!
I think the main problem with that would be how small the card art window is. I don't know how many laypeople would want to have to paint with a magnifying glass and a detail brush.
Commander precons used to have oversized versions of the commanders. Maybe they could bring back something like that so it would be larger?
@@seandun7083 It’d be better for paint ing, for sure, but then you cant really play it (in a practical manner anyways). Wizards probably doesn’t want to encourage painting on cards anyways lest they train up a new generation of proxy artists. 😅
My wife loves color by numbers and a lot of the art on my magic cards. It’d free money and a new demo for wizards. A win win decision for consumer and corpo, so no way they’ll make it.
Innistrad double feature has already been made
If I ever got a match loss for this, I would request that the head judge give me something in writing so I can have physical evidence of the situation.
Loved the conversation on Secret Lair. The print to demand is the best way to move forward with this. Bots will always ruin a defined print run. To correlate your conversation about Gen Con most of the games are crowd funded and this whole community knows that it typically takes 1 - 1.5 years for the product to arrive. However, there is consistent updates from the producer speaking to the status of the product. Keep up the great work and love the content !!!
Unsets biggest issue is that Magic’s design space has expanded so far that it’s really hard to do a full Unset anymore, and works better a few cards in the set that is basically “chaos draft” the set. Playtest cards have the advantage that the “wacky” cards don’t have to fit a sets central theme.
Edit: Also the fact that the first two Un-sets were meant to be used in a chaos draft, while the most recent two Un-sets are meant to be drafted by themselves
@@RBGolbat magic design being that expanded should be a boon, not a problem.
@@MakeVarahHappen it’s a problem for unsets specifically, I’m not saying it’s a problem for magic as a whole
@@RBGolbat I know.
Yeah...how poorly Unhinged and Unglued play with Unstable and Unfinity is a bummer.
Glad to here Crim had fun with Gen Con. It was a blast to meet him in person.
They absolutely did a “paint your own magic card set”! How do y’all not remember Double-Feature?? 🤣
RE: Monty Python Secret Lair. Limit sales to a certain number per household. (Or address/P.O. Box) Say, two per address. Scalpers would then, at best, be purchasing four. (Two for work, two for home.)
And two for each P.O. box they have...
@@casteanpreswyn7528 P.O. Boxes are not free.
Wotc doesn't ship to po boxes@@casteanpreswyn7528
@@casteanpreswyn7528 still better than the 25 you can buy right now. 2 per person should be plenty enough.
its always kind of surprising for me how nobody in the crew really digs limited. MB2 looks quite fun to draft and that as far as it goes imo
Limited is the most boring way to play magic, it only appeals to people who don't like high power formats or don't have the cards to keep up with the current meta, or people who want to try and make profit by winning, it also makes for terrible content, so its not surprising.
@@zephiel1932tell all that to LSV...
@@zephiel1932 lol what a garbage take. Limited actually requires you evaluate how good a card is and tests how well you can construct a deck. 99 percent of people playing constructed just chase the meta by net decking the most recent deck that performed well in the last competition.
@@zephiel1932 I disagree with it being the most boring way, but I guess that part is a matter of opinion. As a frequently lapsed player, I find making a deck on the spot quite a fun experience new cards and among the best way to bring people into the game.
I agree that is not even close to high power but I do think successfully playing limited requires understanding the meta.
@@zephiel1932
Limited is the most pure skill testing format
Crims got the Gencon bug now.
One of us, one of us, one of us
A hybrid Secret Lair system seems the best option. A bunch of pre-prepped kits that are first come first served but then allow for print on demand after. So if you want it ASAP you chase the queue but you can still get it if there's a rush buy and you just need to wait.
And they can still appeal to the investor crowd by serializing the first come first served kits. That way the scalpers will still buy in and the rest of us can get the cool art we want at a decent price.
That’s a great idea! It’s worked well in Yugioh where people are hyped for 1st edition cards that have a boosted appeal, but they don’t punish budget players with a bit more patience to get the same game pieces later
This podcast never disappoints. Keep it up!
I'm so glad Richard is thinking of the hybrid SL system. It would solve so many of the issues that exist under the limited quantity available. Maximizes FOMO for those who want it immediately, while not punishing those who weren't awake or available to sit at their computer immediately upon a drop release. Might even discourage bots and scalpers because you have the option to pay 2x as much on ebay or just simply wait 6 months
In an alternate universe:
Announcing Mystery Booster 2! Available only at your LGS as a prize for Standard FNM!
I'd build a Standard deck *today.*
*sigh*
This is actually a genius idea. Very similar to the OTS pack system that Konami used for Yugioh.
I would totally support this! I used to go to local Yugioh games just for OTS packs to upgrade my decks
But that would imply they care about the health of the competitive scene and not the cash flow.
I am a UW artifact believer in standard. These mono black and orzov discard decks are everywhere and artifacts just runs it over with our insane amounts of on board value effects and huge card draw effects.
There is a huge demand for unanswered FishMail Secret Lair questions. They should pre-answer a set number of questions (that haven't been asked yet) and then put the overage into a queue that will be shipped 6 months from now.
GenCon is amazing. My first GenCon was way back in 2003. Magic is massive there, but so are a lot of things. Definitely worth the visit.
A friend of mine was one of the judges at Gencon and released her tournament report if you guys were interested in it. The sum of it is, there was rumors of it going on several times, until a player told a judge that they had been asked to concede in return for getting a percentage of the other players winnings, and had accepted it unknowing that wagering isn't allowed. That considered waging and the rules state in it that using items outside of the game to determine the winner is against the rules. It's was a tough call for the judges but I think they handled things the best they could in a bad spot
WOTC once again confirming they don't care at all about the rest of the planet that isn't in US/Canada or Europe. Most of the planet does not have Magic conventions.
Japan got a Black Lotus reprint.
As someone who went to magiccon Chicago and found out that all the events were soldout. After being able to join any game at PAX. I would be pissed to find I couldn't play an exclusive set. They should let everyone play these because they are the best "magic" experence left.
In Canada and the US the judge program is Judge Foundry. Judge programs are regional now.
I don't think the judges need to be talking about this situation, but they should make a clear, public statement about equity shares so everyone knows the rules.
I agree with Richard that Magic doesn't want to get involved in grey areas. Just ban all equity anywhere. Prize splits only in the finals.
You just argued against yourself your saying not equity shares prize splitting is exactly that. The only difference is this term there is a single card being won i.e. you cant just split the cash 50/50. Also prize splitting is the same concept, it is also against the rules just as much as you are trying to manipulate the outcome of the event.
Equity shares are just prize splits.
I feel ever more alone in my love for Un sets...I understand everything that left sour flavors on people's minds from it..but it's still holding a very special place in my heart. I'm actually running an Unfinity commander draft at the LGS in the next month or so ❤
It's more than just printing some cardboard for Wizards. Indeed, only printing 4 cards is likely more expensive than normal cards. They still have to commission the artwork which is likely the same cost regardless of how many copies are made. Then the actual printing is likely much more for only a couple cards than a whole set as there is likely a discount for scale production.
They just up the print run and either destroy the extra copies or hold them for promos. They've done that for a long time.
Printing 1 single extra sheet at the end of thousands and thousands of sheets is still dirt cheap. Don't fool yourself into believing it's some special financial hit to do this.
After watching judges DQ people over proxies that were real cards and cost them hundreds of dollars, the one guy ~2k, I feel the sentiment is pretty negative towards judges. Going out of their way to hunt down proxies while people are shuffle-cheating and intentionally missing triggers to cheat.
Wizards has to DQ proxy’s for sanctioned play. Otherwise people don’t need the cards at all 😅
@@Zarbon000 most of the cards people proxy wizards doesn’t make money on… the people still buy in-print cards and support wizards. And what has been created now are people who have their opponents deck-checked on the suspicion of proxies which loses the tournament down and creates negativity.
I think you missed the point where the people were dq’ed for proxies that were real cards… imagine getting kicked out of top 8, losing $1500-5k because someone doesn’t believe you have a serialized card… great atmosphere. The person bought your fancy collector boosters and they are rewarded with having several thousand dollars stolen from them.
What is this event you are talking about?
@@FearOgre SCG Cincinnati had:
1. someone disqualified in top 8 for using a fake card sold to him by a vendor on site. Causing him to lose a guaranteed 1300+ in prizes.
2. Someone was disqualified for serialized wurmcoil engines that the judge said were fake; and they used a loupe to determine were real… actually got a loupe out even after TOAMagic told them they were real.
3. Seattle Magiccon at pax: player dq’ed for fake cards. Vendor said they were real so the judge spent 45 minutes constructing an obtuse argument on how his deck was marked… on random cards and random bent sleeves… that was normal wear and tear on sleeves of a tournament sponsor…
This year has been full of crap calls and judge issues. We had a person disqualified from a large tournament over a proxy that a judge assigned for the event due to the card being foil-warped. The head judge was asked to leave after an incident and one of the lower judges then disqualified the guy saying the card was not recognized. 200+ person event with a 10k prize pool.
I think the solution for the Secret Lair issue is if you did something like foils are limited quantity with maybe a limited quantity of already printed and ready to go non foils, but then keep it open for the full duration to do print to demand on the non foils, you both create the scarcity and hype to sell right away while allowing people to trickle in later and still get the cool stuff, it is just non foil and takes longer to get to you.
I think if we are talking about good in-jokes on Mystery Booster cards, Demonic Consultation has the flavor text of "Abandon Hope", which if you've ever played or played against the card on MTGO you'll recognize the reference.
Giving away cards as prizes only solves the issue for higher up tournaments with VERY exclusive cards. You can see this with qualifiers and showdowns. The top8 prize is worth 60 bucks (local currency). Then, you slap it as the only prize to the top8. You pay 60 for entrance, and now every weekend you flood the market with new deaths shadow to the point it is now worth like 8 bucks. Add to that giving modern players non-modern legal or playable promos, giving standard players modern cards... they ALWAYS mess up giving cards as prizes, it should just be money OR booster (you sell or crack if want. Your call)
Equity, in this case, isn't betting against yourself, since you want to win for the bigger % of the prize. It's a buffer against getting shafted by the uneven prize curve. This is the exact same as a prize split, just different terms.
Wizards should go all one way or the other. Either no draws, peize splitting, etc. or let players redistribute prizes in whatever manner they see fit. Its silly to have a judge make a call on something so nebulous that relies heavily on personal opinion/morals instead of defined rules.
The fact that it was a person outside the game that caused it makes it even more ridiculous.
Were the mystery booster playtest cards this time around actually all taken from custom magic card creation on the internet? Also I find it hard to look up a list of them somewhere, Scryfall hasn't compiled MB2
selling equity is quite literally the opposite of betting on yourself. its technically someone else betting on you. you are less likely to throw games because your ability to sell your equity in future tournaments is based on your ability to win said tournaments. i dont see how magic can allow intentional draws or friendly scoops because hey if we draw we both advance and if we lose we dont but then say you cant sell a stake in your own win. its much closer to be sponsored to play than gambling.
This^ like both Crim and Richard didn't really understand what was going on. As with this kind of "betting" you are just trying to limit your losses if in the tournament just exactly like people who prize split. The main difference is it still matters who wins. It is also the fault of the tournament prize structure this even happened in the first place. As you can't exactly prize split a single card at least not without a lot of trust.
What also makes it worse is judges really shouldn't be the ones enforcing these kinds of policies. They are there to prevent cheating and people gaining an advantage, that wasn't happening in the slightest. His friend was outside of the tournament so any talk unless it is game advice or info is irrelevant. Like all this does is make it more smart to just always lie to the judge about what you are talking about. As if they can give you a match loss over this kind of conversation people will become incentivized to lie about what they were discussing to avoid the possibility of a loss/DQ.
If you could simply buy the box itself with no extras as your "convention in a box", that would be a neat option, especially if they kept the window for it open longer. I don't care much for the extras they put in to raise the price.
Sounds like what Richard is describing is a Level 5 Superjudge... SOMEONE CALL BEEJ
Richards hybrid system for secret lairs sounds pretty good to me 👍 ... Limiting it to one item per secret lair would be bad though, as not working with basic land secret lairs and for me at least you only have some of the lairs you enjoy and its most likely not 3 of the drop ... So you buy one double ... Or you want a playset...
Important point about not wanting to call judges it happens all the time . Say if someone flips there top card after there courser of kruphix dies a lot of the times it would just be it’s whatever just shuffle . If u call a judge it’s a warning for both players probably
Richard with the tech for secret lair. That would be the perfect system.
11:30 Unfinity and Mystery Booster 1 traded a few cards back and forth. They're very similar and WOTC is aware of that. MB1 also goes for a different tone, and that one really seems to be more liked.
Proposed prize solution: All of top 8 get a copy of the prize card, and the #1 player gets a serialized style "winner" stamp on thiers.
Do the current way and allow a week for people to put in orders and the late ones get there order in 6 months. Scalpers will also be less likely to buy a bunch because they will print more thus eventually reducing the need for that week of (to be printed) orders.
How about same card for whatever cut you want to award, but stamp it with their finishing place
Guys guys, you can play sellsword in the gruul list, you don't need to even play the creature.
How’s the new Standard in MtG?
“I was playing Gruul Mice.” -Richard
What is standard challenge?? I’m seeing tons of mouse and squirrel decks & otter storm with Itali favor is no joke storm in standard
21:49 well one reason is because buy ins where staking is common are 10k and up and the buy in for a magic tournament is $50. Also the variance in poker is higher than magic both in terms of outcome and by number of variables (full table). So it becomes financially viable and almost necessary when to show routine monthly income rather than a year of 300k then two years of net loss.
What about serialized cards for top 8 and extra special surge serialized for top prize?
You guys should consider having Judging Ftw as a guest! He’s a very nice and player-considerate L2 (I believe), and he is pretty knowledge in regards to the state of judging.
I don't always agree with Richard but on this episode I agree with him on, I think all the points. Secret lair system he prpose is the best.
Second breakfast wasn’t the same with the podcast releasing in the afternoon :(
Cutting out LGSs is a cancer on this game
Is there a go fund me link to get crim a new headset?
WotC makes Assassin's Creed, a product that should have been secret lair or commander decks, as a sealed product that nobody wanted and that couldn't even be drafted.
Now MB2, a product designed to be played in a sealed format and loved by fans, is only available at a convention?
What an excellent business strategy.
Also the final of the tournament ended with one player scooping to the other
1st edition Secret Lairs ready to ship, then print to demand after that?
Damn Richard just suggested this.
"This product is not for you."
Crim, you were interrupted talking about your simic deck with glarp and oko. Whats the idea with that deck?
If Wizards is at all serious about MTG not being associated with gambling, they should really stamp out equity purchasing- but don't disqualify the guy who is explicitly not doing that.
The current way they sell SLs just encourages making your own cards with the SL art instead of paying triple the asking price to a reseller
No one hates their customers more than WotC.
"Secret Layer: Paint by Numbers" incoming...
Richard said that WotC underestimated how many people wanted the Monty Python SLD. Is my memory wrong or doesn't every single SLD sell out in a matter of days or even hours? I could swear the last ten-ish SLD's got a video from the Prof in the sense of "here's my analysis of this SLD, even though it sold out already by the time this video was done". I've heard it two to three times at least that a friend of mine wanted to buy a certain SLD but they sold out in the first 12 hours or less and so on.
As Seth pointed out. I dont think Wizards will care about some tournaments, they dont care enough to support the millions of people in the world who speak Portuguese as an example. If they don't want to support Brazil and Portugal (and some other countries) I don't think they'll spend a few hundred thousand dollars of their 1 Billion to fix things for about 100 people who compete at that level.
I've always liked standard and used to grind tournaments but it doesn't feel worth it to play with decks costing so much and dealing with rotation so to commander I go
Richard literally describing what was in place before wotc switched to limited quantity.
Y'all should see fighting games when it comes to prizing. In the FGC you pretty much just play for bragging rights
Tournaments with thousands of entrants and the winner gets like 3k lol
Why cant the whole player base get access to mystery booster 2??
Seems just as predatory as recent secret lair model where its limited supply, limited window to buy, and this will be a $200+ box unfortunately so its not budget friendly for most.
Unfinity should be the con exclusive, not specialized reprints that could have been special commander decks; one precon full white border and one precon full future sight border.
Based on the judge story, it sounds like a judge hopped up on authority. "What i say goes, nothing you can say changes it" is like the most stick up your own kind of response.
Well betting on yourself is fine, you don't change any incentive that any player would have. The issue arises purely if you bet on someone else.
The difference, to my eye, is that Unsets are what Rosewater and co think is funny. These seem to reflect what (some of) the playerbase think is funny.
Betting on yourself isn’t match fixing because you still have to win. Buying equity of a competitor is similar to better on your opponent to winning but still not the same
Crim keeps talking about this Glarb midrange deck, but I can't for the life of me see a version anywhere online. Does anybody have a link to it?
IDK if this is the same deck as Crim's, but Jim Davis has a pretty cool list. th-cam.com/video/1rwELEG2s4s/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Z-xl3lRzTwL9gbH7
Do the poker players sell equity on the tournament floor within earshot of a judge?
I'd wager the answer is no.
“Is sports betting legal now?”
Yes, it is, they legalized it a few years ago
Sounds like one of the buddies was an imposter all along. With friends like those, who needs enemies.
Selling equity is like being sponsored, not like betting on yourself. They pay for part of your entry, so you pay them part of your winnings. How do you stop this from happening from a tournament standpoint? Easy answer, you don't, because its insanely murky to police at all
2:01 it's called innistrad double feature
I was at Command Fest Orlando and the Judges were telling the players how to split prizes in the drafts.
32:12 The solution seems simple enough. Runner-up gets a dark ritual, winner get a dark ritual + another exclusive card.
My Miku/AC/Wolf SLD still took, like, 5 weeks to get here, so
If the events happened as described by the person who was DQ'ed, then that's very ripe for being exploited.
Let's say that I'm in a semi-final against Seth, and I know that I'm a massive underdog. I then have one of my friends walk up to Seth, ensuring that a judge is in hearing range, and have that friend ask Seth "are you willing to do an equity split?" Bam - Seth is DQ'ed for that, and I sail through to the finals.
That's IF the events happened as described by the person who was DQ'ed.
whoever decided that white border is a draw should be fired immediately...
The test cards so much better then the UN sets. They were never as funny or fun ask people think.
WOTC should charge extra for early batch secret lairs.
Richard, you should only be able to bet on yourself. That would stop the throwing.
Mystery boosters not through lgs and only through events/secret lairs is horrible for regular players. And will make these singles stupid expensive.
So, it isn't adding new cards to the game so it's just a vanity art variant
Waiting for cards is 10x better than waiting for some more time. It's a secret lair, you most likely are not getting them because you need them in 3 days for a tourney. Go back to the old system 101%. You do not want to make everyone into a scalper because who does not want to flip money.
I remember back when I played, that everyone hated the white border cards…. It’s come full circle now… they’ve made white borders so random and rare that ppl want them now… I still dislike it…
So there are new cards in mb2. Arena exclusives and old video game cards are here and here alone so every commander player wants acess
I was surprised to run into Crim at gencon. I went for random board games and one piece at msrp!
If the way Richard said it is true, I feel really bad for that guy who got DQd. But things are rarely that simple.
The Sorcery tcg looks sweet. Good showing at GenCon.
The new white border looks absolutely terrible. Looks like a printing mistake.
Players need to start suing for these kinds of damages done to them. Sure they may end up getting banned by WOTC, but it would send a clear message to all judges to get their assertions to be consistent and fair
We don't know the actual reality of what happened.
@@TheEvolver311and I get that for a grace period after the inciting incident, but if other parties refuse to come forward and offer their side of the story, is the whole world just supposed to remain neutral forever?
@Jlizard27
Yes neutrality is preferred when you don't have actionable information.
@@TheEvolver311at a certain point, a willful withholding of information *is* actionable information.
@@Jlizard27 um no it isn't. And as far as we can tell the player did get a game loss for a legitimate reason, you are not allowed to engage in collusion for monetary gain with other players. He got ruled out for that. That is the only certain thing we know, they are mad because they asked for a exception for themselves and it was denied. So what are we even talking about taking action on? That this one person should have to rules ignored for them just because?
It sounds a lot like how Richard put it, it's like getting ticket for going 2 over when you know half of everyone driving is speeding and probably way worse but raw deal you are the one who got caught.
It should be completely banned/unacceptable to sell/swap equity or prize money amongst players or outsiders. The fact that these conversations are going on is a real competitive problem.
As someone who follows lots of sports/esports (but not Poker) this would be a huge scandal nearly everywhere else.
there are new - ish cards
It's this kind of stuff that makes me not want to bother going to these exclusive tournaments. How would the judge know they're talking about Magic...at all? They don't.
"My friend who isn't playing and is offering no unfair outside help is talking about some unrelated equity split thing that has no outcome on the results of the tournament. I have no idea I'm busy please stop bothering me during my match."
>You have been DQ'd for talking about finance while at a Magic tournament
Didn't they do away with the judge's program? Did they bring it back? In no situation other than someone committing a crime or getting violent should anyone receiving a judge call be denied an appeal to a higher judge. It completely defeats the purpose of their position if they're too stupid or lazy to do their job.