Prize abundance, a case study: Eldritch Moon

shteev

Let's take a long, hard look at the mythics that were being given away like water during one of the most recent Era's of Abundance: Eldritch Moon.

Being a smaller set, there were only 12 mythics in Eldritch Moon. 6 of them were exclusive, so 6 of them were being given away as prizes.

As a top player, how may mythics could I expect to be given in a week? Someone correct my numbers for me if I'm wrong but I think it's around this many: 5 or 6 maximum, if I could place top 5 in every single event in a week. 2 minimum, just for my coalition placing in position 1 or 2 regardless of how well I personally performed. So maybe 3-4 on average?

So it really didn't take long before the endless stream of new mythics to the top players actually shut down because they owned all of them. Here's the set release thread on October 10th, and here's one of the top players complaining that they can't get any more mythics, 2 weeks later on October 25th.

Now, I suspect that complaints from players that the toxic elite were pretty much guaranteed to get all the mythics from this set, whereas those in lower tiers were not and may not have them all to this day, were not because we all got a copy of Nahiri's Wrath, Mind's Dilation, Tree of Perdition, and Ishkanah, Grafwidow. I think it's because we were all guaranteed to get Deploy the Gatewatch and Decimator of the Provinces.

I suggest that the reason the top tier as so far ahead of the lower tiers, and why people fear the leap into Gold and Platinum Tier so much, is not an issue of prize abundance at all.. it's a card balance issue. A child of 4 could have seen that Deploy the Gatewatch was broken. I look forward to the design team's next birthday!


[edit: Fixed broken links]

deletedgone

shteev said:

A child of 4 could have seen that Deploy the Gatewatch was broken.

I asked my son about Deploy the Gatewatch.  He's only three, but is a pretty smart kid.  He said he wanted to watch Superman.

shteev

spesler said:

shteev said:

A child of 4 could have seen that Deploy the Gatewatch was broken.

I asked my son about Deploy the Gatewatch.  He's only three, but is a pretty smart kid.  He said he wanted to watch Superman.

Tell him Marvel is better than DC; that's an objective FACT.

deletedgone

shteev said:

spesler said:

shteev said:

A child of 4 could have seen that Deploy the Gatewatch was broken.

I asked my son about Deploy the Gatewatch.  He's only three, but is a pretty smart kid.  He said he wanted to watch Superman.

Tell him Marvel is better than DC; that's an objective FACT.

Interesting point.  I'll see what he says.