How much money are you spending on MTGPQ?

shteev

EDHdad wrote:

Going back to the examples of my decks, I recently removed a Mythic from all of my blue decks and replaced it with a common. (Engulf the Shore was replaced with Disperse). This was a metagame choice. When Runaway Carriage was dominant in the format, non-targeted removal was much more attractive.

Mm. I'm not convinced. You make it sound as if the change in the metagame has made Disperse subjectively more powerful than Engulf the Shore. What I'd say is that the extreme power in your deck and synergies perculiar to it allow you to carry a rather average card like Disperse, which has become situationally more useful to you. If I was to replace the Engulf the Shore in My Kiora deck with Disperse, it would become worse. Suddenly needing to cast a cheap spot removal card at a moment's notice is not a problem that my Kiora deck has (although obviously it has it's own set of weaknesses).

EDHdad

It isn't a matter of whether a card is weak or powerful. It's what you're trying to do. Generally speaking, a Magic deck can be aggro (kill opponent as fast as possible), control (disrupt the opponent and eventually win the game), midrange (a combination of the two), combo (putting two or three cards together to win the game) or tempo (trading cards and resources with your opponent, making your cards do the work of 2 of their cards).

Disperse is not a weak card. It is a tempo card. Engulf the shore is not a tempo card. It is a control card. It isn't just Hexproof which makes Disperse attractive relative to Engulf the Shore. It's also the fact that there is lots of discard in the metagame. Most of the time, Engulf the shore is only acting as a Disperse or two Disperse. Yet, it's 18 mana while Disperse is 4. While you're busy powering up your Engulf, an effect like Liliana's first ability, Transgress the Mind, Infinite Obliteration, etc can rip it out of your hand.

If the opponent casts a 20-mana Olivia, I'd rather bounce it for 4 than bounce it for 18. That's tempo.

shteev

EDHdad wrote:

It isn't a matter of whether a card is weak or powerful. It's what you're trying to do. Generally speaking, a Magic deck can be aggro (kill opponent as fast as possible), control (disrupt the opponent and eventually win the game), midrange (a combination of the two), combo (putting two or three cards together to win the game) or tempo (trading cards and resources with your opponent, making your cards do the work of 2 of their cards).

Disperse is not a weak card. It is a tempo card. Engulf the shore is not a tempo card. It is a control card. It isn't just Hexproof which makes Disperse attractive relative to Engulf the Shore. It's also the fact that there is lots of discard in the metagame. Most of the time, Engulf the shore is only acting as a Disperse or two Disperse. Yet, it's 18 mana while Disperse is 4. While you're busy powering up your Engulf, an effect like Liliana's first ability, Transgress the Mind, Infinite Obliteration, etc can rip it out of your hand.

If the opponent casts a 20-mana Olivia, I'd rather bounce it for 4 than bounce it for 18. That's tempo.

This all smacks of disinformation for people on lower tiers. Would ANYONE play Engulf the Shore as the SOLE piece of creature removal in their decks?

If the opponent casts a 20 mana Olivia and then 4 Devil tokens, I'd probably like the Engulf, TBH. If they don't play the Devil tokens I'll turn her into a frog. I can take 11 damage if it takes me a couple of turns to cast it... I don't really like playing planeswalkers who start on 80 life anyway.

Disperse is a weak card which is situationally useful in your strong deck. I'm willing to bet if you were to rank all the cards in your deck in power order, you'd rank Disperse at the bottom. We all do it... I've run Mire's Malice in powerful Ob decks, I've run Not Forgotten in powerful Harness decks, I've run Bonded Construct in powerful Saheeli decks. Nobody would argue that these are Tier 1 cards, not even me, but they fitted into those particular decks well.

I flatter myself that I've picked up some knowledge of tempo in 20 years playing paper MTG. I think this article is a great primer on it for those who haven't come across the term:

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar ... 2006-09-30

paralistalon

There's three ways to spend money on this game. #1 is to buy a new planeswalker when it first comes out. This option isn't very appealing to me because buying it with crystals later is usually a better deal. #2 is to buy big boxes. I can't do this because I don't have a ton of disposable income to throw away. The reality is that you can easily spend $50, even more, and get no new cards to show for it. If that happened to me once, I'd be so sick I'd permanently delete the game from my phone. And #3 is to buy a card directly. The only card I regret not buying was Shrine of the Forsaken because it's an auto-include in every deck and is way too strong. I'm glad most of the cards for sale are actually not that great.

Basically I fall into the camp of the current value you get for your money isn't worth it. But that hasn't hindered my ability to fill all five nodes with pretty strong decks.

I don't think increasing the value (increasing the drop rate for rares and mythics) would wreck the metagame. The match-making system is really what determines this. There's nothing stopping the matchmaker from pairing you exclusively with the 10 people who have broken OP decks. Conversely, everyone can have broken mythic decks and as long as they mix up the pairings, you won't feel burnt out by only playing Kioras Winning Deck. Of course, if you don't get paired against these decks on occasion, you end up with everyone getting 100 win streaks so...

EDHdad

Disperse is a weak card which is situationally useful in your strong deck.

I'd say it's the other way around. Engulf the Shores is useless 90% of the time it's in your hand, but it is situationally useful when your opponent's board is out of control.

If your opponent has 1 creature on board, you can Disperse it for 4 mana, while Engulf the Shores requires 18 mana to bounce.

If your opponent has 2 creatures on board, you can Disperse them for 8 mana, while Engulf the shores requires 18 mana to bounce.

If your opponent has 3 creatures on board, you can Disperse them for 12 mana, while Engulf the Shores requires 18 mana to bounce.

If the creature is a token, Disperse flat-out kills it. If the creature has been reinforced or buffed with some spell or effect, Disperse undoes the reinforcing and the buffing.

Suppose there are two decks, each with 100 life: with one, you can draw your choice of Disperse or Caustic Caterpillar. With the other, you can draw only Olivia Voldaren. Each deck gains 4 mana per turn, and no planeswalker abilities are used.

By my calculation, the Disperse / Caterpillar deck will win that game on turn 16, with a 17/17 Caterpillar, having bounced 3 Olivias.

Replace Disperse with Engulf the Shores and the Caterpillar deck loses on turn 17.

Replace both cards with Crush of Tentacles, and it's Team Octopus on turn 15.

blacklotus

why not use Harbringer? for 6 mana more, you get a 4/4 body with a better disperse.

disperse gives the dispersed card 6 mana. Harbringer gives the same card -6 mana.

Reflector Mage is 4/4, costs 11mana and gives the same card -301 mana for 1 turn. it means that card won't be in play till 2 turns later at the earliest.

Corn_Noodles

Individual card sales is the norm in paper magic and it should be the norm here. It requires the devs to keep on top of card balance to ensure a level playing field.

Omega Red

EDHdad wrote:

If cards were cheap everyone would have all the mythics and this game would be unplayable. It's not about selling as much as possible, but staying in business for as long as possible as well, you don't want to run out of content to sell after a couple of months

TBH, that isn't even remotely true. I'm Platinum in all 5 colors and a member of a top 10 coalition. I expect the decks I face will be tuned to 100% efficiency with every nasty card in the game. But my decks are designed to beat those decks, or at least they beat those decks when they're piloted by the AI.

Right now, I'm 48-0 in the current Nodes event (which, oddly is enough to get me 14th place in my bracket).

My Ob Nixilis deck has 1 Mythic, 3 uncommons and 1 common.

My Ajani deck has 5 uncommons, 1 common, 3 rares and 1 Mythic.

My Kiora deck has 3 commons, 3 Mythics and 4 rares.

My Saheeli deck has 3 uncommons, 5 rares and 2 Mythics.

My Sarkhan deck has 0 Mythics, 6 uncommons and 4 rares.

The idea that you need to bloat your deck with a bunch of Mythics to win at this game is simply untrue, even at the highest level. You win this game with the fundamentals of card evaluation, deck design, card sequencing, gem matching, and so forth. Not by throwing a bunch of money on a 20-mana mythic that dies to a common.

Eh, I never said anything about deckbuilding. I only said "everyone would have (access to) all the mythics". Now, that translates to having access to all the cards and being able to build any deck you want. That means we all would be running the same deck because the meta here is dictated by the match-three element and the rules and format of each event. Case in point, quick battle where you have to win as fast as possible.

Scarcity actually promotes deck diversity. Whenever I get a random mythic or rare I am forced to be creative and find an use for that card and build a deck around it instead of just copying the meta deck which is what would happen if I had all the cards available.

EDHdad

Everyone in Puzzle Quest having access to Exert Influence doesn't sound any worse to me as everyone in Poker having access to the Queen of Spades.

venomAA

I have also spent 0 money on this game. Why? Bad quality software and random cards. In paper magic you don't spend 20 bucks on a booster. You spend 20 bucks on an specific card. And that grants you access to possible more money since you can win tournaments or resell the card. In here you don't have that. Prices should be way lower.
Into the quality of cards, I must imagine edhdad comes from paper magic as do I.
In paper magic you dont need to stuff your deck full of mythics to win. You add the needed amount of cards to balance the curve and accomplish the deck strategy.
My kiora for example runs 2 mythics and 4 rares. Crush, days are the only mythics. The other 4 slots are commons and uncummons. And I use to run a deck with 2 mythics and 3 rares before. That was a 50/50 build based on rarity. Why? The decks is based on cheap ramp, and there's not a rare ramp card that can out value those cheap common and uncommon cards.
Other decks of mine have also a good portion of commons and uncommons like my red decks.
You certainly don't need all mythics nor rares in a deck, specially you need to build sinergy and tempo. Also its almost impossible to have different mythics accomplish the same function, since you will also need consistency

Typhon

I have spent about $150 in total then stopped, I have all mythics and golds in my Koth deck, and i am almost unbeatable, i can get top 10 if not top 5 in quick match all week if i have the time to play enough

I stopped spending money because red and koth are super over powered in this game, there is waaaaay to much inbalance right not to play any other color, if i lose its because the rng just isnt going my way

I would spend more money if they lowered the ridiculous price of buying cards, or game more cards per back , say 8 instead of 5

the game is just too expensive to spend $30 for a big box and almost never get a mythic, i've gotten 4 mythics from the 8 hour free 3 pull , I suggest people not do the same, the game is unbalanced and too expensive, how they arrived at the price points they have for 5 usually useless cards is beyond me, ill spen $3.99 on actual magic cards and get myself that guaranteed gold and just sell it

so ya, i stopped at $150 because i got the cards i needed to just grind my way to the top of quick match

Ohboy

Typhon wrote:

I have spent about $150 in total then stopped, I have all mythics and golds in my Koth deck, and i am almost unbeatable, i can get top 10 if not top 5 in quick match all week if i have the time to play enough

I stopped spending money because red and koth are super over powered in this game, there is waaaaay to much inbalance right not to play any other color, if i lose its because the rng just isnt going my way

I would spend more money if they lowered the ridiculous price of buying cards, or game more cards per back , say 8 instead of 5

the game is just too expensive to spend $30 for a big box and almost never get a mythic, i've gotten 4 mythics from the 8 hour free 3 pull , I suggest people not do the same, the game is unbalanced and too expensive, how they arrived at the price points they have for 5 usually useless cards is beyond me, ill spen $3.99 on actual magic cards and get myself that guaranteed gold and just sell it

so ya, i stopped at $150 because i got the cards i needed to just grind my way to the top of quick match

Quick battle is not a good indicator of power because everyone is building unstable decks to play faster. Speed matters in quick battle, not good decks

Against unstable decks, you just need to play in a non brain dead manner, and you'll find all sorts of weaknesses to exploit.

EDHdad

@Ohboy - the relevant question in my mind is "if they spend another $150, what are they getting for that money?"

* Some specific cards they are actively seeking to make their deck faster, more resilient, and more consistent?

* A couple of run-of-the-mill cards they will never play, and a huge pile of useless duplicates?

Rattlehed

$0

I also find their sales hilariously laughable.. $30 for a single card and some crystals and runes sprinkled on top? No thanks

Fiddler

Spent a ton of $$$, have 685 of the cards.

I find this thread interesting. Seems like the extra money I have spent has given me an edge of 60 cards or so. I have 55 mythic and 128 rare cards. Is the edge significant? Sure, I succeed more in earning fairy dust or whatever. But since my pool of remaining cards is limited, I have to spend more to get new items. So its kind of a wash.

Was it worth it? Doubtful. I know I missed out on cards in events I was unable to join because of a software bug. I know cards I paid directly for which were subsequently altered and reduced in power. I know that the support desk cannot compensate for these losses. I know that runes are worthless after a point.

The game is still fun, its just difficult to justify any further spending.

Rootbreaker

Fiddler wrote:

Spent a ton of $$$, have 685 of the cards.

I find this thread interesting. Seems like the extra money I have spent has given me an edge of 60 cards or so. I have 55 mythic and 128 rare cards. Is the edge significant? Sure, I succeed more in earning fairy dust or whatever. But since my pool of remaining cards is limited, I have to spend more to get new items. So its kind of a wash.

Was it worth it? Doubtful. I know I missed out on cards in events I was unable to join because of a software bug. I know cards I paid directly for which were subsequently altered and reduced in power. I know that the support desk cannot compensate for these losses. I know that runes are worthless after a point.

The game is still fun, its just difficult to justify any further spending.

I've spent no money and have 666 cards, although I'm sure I have significantly more than the average free player because I get a mythic from my Coalition each event.

Abenjes

I've spent about $100, I brought Omnath who I just couldn't pass up and I brought a couple of crystal packs so I could buy Green Big boxes looking for a specific card, Nissa's renewal which surprise surprise I didn't get.

Am I happy with the money I spent? over all yes,

I was and still am very happy with Omnath and I got a warleader as the guaranteed rare from a green box so over all dropping a bit of money has been advantageous and I'm pleased I spent the money, it has helped me pick up a few card that have helped me a lot.

I cannot say I will never spend money again (Arlinn I'm looking at you) but I can say it's probably unlikely as I simply cannot justify it, and I can buy most of what I need with crystals earned from events.

I've now basically resigned myself to the fact that I will never own some cards and that's just the way it is.

how ever if you want to spend money on the game, fill your boots as we say, if you have the disposable income you can choose to spend your money on whatever you like and D3 can charge whatever they like as long as people keep buying and a lot of people brought Olivia...

MaxMagic420

Want to hear something funny? Despite my mixed feelings, knowing it was a bonehead move, I got a big box. Zip. Dupes.
Just now, from the free daily reward origin pack, hangarback walker.
Laugh or cry, that's irony at its sadistic best.

Feyda

Zero money and never will, I know this company from play marvel PQ back in the day, overpriced greedy schemes and half the time they will nerf that item you just spent $30 bucks on. Big boxes dont even remotely tempt me. I've used 2400 crystals I earned in game buying 4 big boxes and have received ZERO mythics from them....

Mangus 73

Zero. The big boxes I have had were a waste of saved crystals, never had a mythic from one and my last was 7 rares all dupes. when I only own 12 from the set that is not rng, that is straight up con. I too know the company from mpq. They getting no money from me until they sell a pack with a guaranteed mythic. They want support from the players but won't give anything back. Its gambling with the odds heavily stacked against u.