Ask Wizards - April 5th, 2004

[CSeraph]

Q: "I heard there was a group of cards called the Power 9. The only card that I know that is in this group is Black Lotus. I was wondering what the other cards are?"

A: From Robert Gustchera, Magic R&D:

"Besides the Black Lotus, they are the 5 Moxes (each of which costs  and taps for 1 colored mana -- Mox Pearl, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby and Mox Emerald), Time Walk, Timetwister, and Ancestral Recall. They're called the 'Power 9' because in formats where they are legal, most people believe you must have 1 of each of them (they are all restricted, so you can't have more) in any top deck. All of these cards appeared in the original Magic set, nicknamed 'Alpha.'

"These cards are so powerful that games involving them often just come down to who draws theirs first. That's no fun, so Wizards doesn't print these cards anymore. That means they are very expensive and hard to find, so not many people play with them now. But for people who still have these old cards, there's 'Type I' (also called Vintage), which is the format in which all kinds of old cards are legal, including the now all-but-legendary 'Power 9.'"


WTF?

Taking it back to the days of 1996, WoTC-Style.

[Dr. Sylvan]

There are (last I heard) some seven million Magic players in the world. Not more than 10-12,000 are into competitive Type One. The statement is valid. We're just an incredibly vocal minority.

As to the swinginess, he's also exactly right. Cheap/free acceleration is consistently unhealthy to a Magic metagame. That's why T1 has more B&R changes than probably all the other formats combined: the P9 break cards that would otherwise be much more okay. (See: Mind's Desire)

[Smash]

They're called the 'Power 9' because in formats where they are legal, most people believe you must have 1 of each of them

The sounds incredibly stupid to us (off color moxen in aggro? timetwister in control?), but it IS the idea of the average player. I was playing some combo deck or other at a card store, and a t2 newb was like OMG YOU PLAYED A TIME TWISTER? ISN'T THAT p9? I HEARD IT WAS WORTH $50!!!

I mean he totally ignored the beta mox sapphire and alpha mox emerald on the table, but he saw a beat up unl. twister which he knew to be power and freaked out.

I just shrugged and said it was a really expensive wheel of fortune

[CSeraph]

All perfectly fair points, Dr.S. My offense stems not from misrepresentation of the raw numbers, but on the old fashioned fairy story the responder weaves around them. Building the Type One community has been about proving, given a balancing restriction list, that the format is not just about who draws the most P9 and who plays first. And I'm not even going to comment on the line about '1 of each P9 in any top deck'.

I'm not going trying to start an anti-WotC rant thread, but it *is* disappointing to see this kind of attitude still being posted on their web site, even from a lower level rep. This really does read like something a Wiz rep might have commented at least 2+ yrs ago - and it seemed worth bringing to people's attention.

How about those "cards ... so powerful that games involving them often just come down to who draws theirs first"? Sounds like Standard.

[Dr. Sylvan]

I actually interpreted the 'must have one of each' comment to mean own one of each. Maybe I give WotC benefit of the doubt a lot.

OMG YOU PLAYED A TIME TWISTER? ISN'T THAT p9? I HEARD IT WAS WORTH $50!!!

Careful around those n00bs, Brian. Type Two causes cancer, ya know.

[DEA]

wizards will never be able to look at it from our point of view until a high ranking executive starts playing competitive t1
don't blame the reps for not understanding : they're not paid nearly enough to dig deeply into the miasma that is t1

[Toad]

One day people will understand WOTC doesn't care at all about Type One and doesn't even know what decks are good in the current metagame. Type One is full of cliches, the "often just come down to who draws theirs first" is one of them, and there is nothing we can do to make that change. Type One is not the elite format and is not played by the majority of the MTG Players..

[Grand Inquisitor]

each of which costs and taps for 1 colored mana

Did this stick out to anyone else?

[DEA]

i filled in the blank mentally  

[MooSE]

Ya, i saw that....but wouldn't that just make moxes into really bad Sol Rings?

[Hi-Val]

You should also keep in mind that it was probably a 14 year old kid writing in who had never heard of T1 before. Instead of spending lots of time explaining the intracacies of the the cards, the writer took the (correct) move of just generally explaining what the P9 are about.

And also, especially in control vs. control matches, whoever can resolve Ancestral first usually wins. Just something to keep in mind.

[Elric]

It actually says costs "0" on the website.  I guess it didn't copy/paste well.  Ironically, Smmenen runs all of the power 9 in both of his recent decks (Slavery, Draw-7).

I remember when I had just started to proxy up fully powered decks and gave one to a friend who is relatively new to the game.  He summarized it as “the games only last a couple of turns, but those turns are so long that it takes the same amount of time as a normal game.”

[Machinus]

A card which costed one colored mana that could be tapped for one colored mana the turn it came into play would be really good. Think, hasted BoP, for only one color. This would be good in any color, especially if it was not susceptible to creature removal which moxes are not.

[CSeraph]

Apologies for the slightly messed paste job.

Toad - I think that's a little pessimistic. A few years ago, that view was representative of WotC/community relations. That's no longer true. We know that Buehler knows something about T1. We know (for better or worse) that Rosewater wants to throw some card kinks into Type 1. That's fantastic. A really productive next step would be to let just a smidgen of Type 1 understanding diffuse down a few levels of the company. Of course it is unreasonable to expect meta-game understanding, or even major deck type knowledge in random reps - but understanding that it is a real format with real strategy and playskills involved is not. If there could be a 'Type 1 memo', a one page document passed down to all the spokesman types explaining a bit of the logic of our format and presenting in a short paragraph each two top decks, I think it would do a lot.

It would be nice if it didn't matter what some random rep is telling people, but it does. The 14 yr old who wrote in, and everyone who read about the P9 for the first time in that Ask Wizards, now thinks we play a bizarre, incomprehensible, 'un-fun' and luck-based format. Not many people here would agree with all of that.

[Swanky]

That's no fun, so Wizards doesn't print these cards anymore.

I love it when "Ask Wizards" phrases its questions in a pseudo-patronizing tone that makes it seem as though a large portion of their market is composed of younger adolescents.  The fools!

What's the price of Krosan Cloudscraper these days?

[ctthespian]

I took my 5 minutes to write an E-mail to Wizards expressing my distaste of the comments made in his answer.  Not saying that will do anything, but hey.  It was only 5 minutes.

-Keith

[Ric_Flair]

I love it when "Ask Wizards" phrases its questions in a pseudo-patronizing tone that makes it seem as though a large portion of their market is composed of younger adolescents. The fools!

They really think this.  I wrote a piece awhile ago on the 25 Best Creatures of All Time (and yes it is Pyschatog, and no there is no other valid choice) for the 10th Anniversary of Magic.  Aaron Forsythe was the site manager at the time and he said that he would publish it, but I had to take out comments relating to suck ass creatures.  In the email he told me that Wizards does not like discouraging new and casual players from using cards and that comments that disparaged their choices were not acceptable.  I would post the email, but it is lost (my laptop was stolen a while ago).  It was really frustrating.  I told him that I would not change the content and instead just posted it on TMD 1.

[Matt]

I love it when "Ask Wizards" phrases its questions as though a large portion of their market is composed of younger adolescents.  The fools!

What's the price of Krosan Cloudscraper these days?

Uh...their market IS composed of largely kids aged 14-18.

[Smmenen]

I love it when people throw around phrases like that - or better yet, that there are 7 million players who play magic and only X number who play Vintage.

The reality is that the number of people who play TRULY competitive Type Two or who even draft is miniscule compared to the number of people who play weekly multiplayer games.  And the 7 million number includes people who have played 10 years ago but no longer do, etc.  If I were to guess I would say that the number of people who take Type Two as a format SERIOUSLY Year Round is NO MORE (and probably much less) than 10 times the number of people who periodically engage in Vintage.  Of course the number of people who draft dwarfs both numbers.

Stephen Menendian

[Dr. Sylvan]

Without hard data, I cannot contest your claim, but I would take PTQ and GP attendance as a signal of the wider competitive audience for the other formats. Either way, we're a few percent of the competitive market, and it's fair for them to say that it's "not many" people. *shrug*

[Smmenen]

Keep in mind I made my claim in carefully phrased terms: "Type two seriously year round".   This, for the most part, excludes PTQ players who do not play Type Two year around - but wait for Regionals (there is no Type Two PTQ to my knowledge - just Regionals and States).  I also was careful in what group I was comparing that number to - in that I did not say people who play Type One seriously year round - just people who engage Vintage periodically - which obviously is a lesser standard.  We lawyers are tricksy in our verbiage.

Steve

[jpmeyer]

Well, most people don't play competitive one particular format all year round outside of Type 1.  If you mean "competitive whatever the qualifying format is" then there is simply no way to compare them.  I see on these boards like "OMG ALMOST 200 PEOPLE FOR THIS TOURNEY WE HYPED FOR MONTHS WHERE EVERYONE IN THE TOP 8 GETS A BLACK LOTUS!" while random weekly PTQ gets 200+ people just because it exists.

[Swanky]

My statement was supposed to have a facetious tone to it.  *Shrug* :P

I would say that this is partially justified, as there's been a "player boom" of sorts since Invasion, and as such many players simply have access to a card pool encompassing 3-6 sets.  That's a prime reason why PTQs attract droves of people just because "they exist;"  people who desire competition can easily compete without the fear of being obliterated by the "turn one wins" that Wizards seems so quick to extol (deride?), and the dreaded "supercards" that instantly win a game upon being slammed into play.  It's almost as though Wizards is unintentionally painting a negative picture of the format.

Oh-Em-Gee;  I'm a conspiracy theorist.

I'd be interested in seeing the growth curve of players competing in the past few years to see just how exponentially playership is rising.  Dr. Sylvan?  *Puppy dog eyes.*

[Smmenen]

Well, most people don't play competitive one particular format all year round outside of Type 1.  If you mean "competitive whatever the qualifying format is" then there is simply no way to compare them.  I see on these boards like "OMG ALMOST 200 PEOPLE FOR THIS TOURNEY WE HYPED FOR MONTHS WHERE EVERYONE IN THE TOP 8 GETS A BLACK LOTUS!" while random weekly PTQ gets 200+ people just because it exists.

I live in Columbus and unlike JP actually attend PTQs.  The reason I mention Columbus is becuase as far as competitive magic goes - we have had the largest North American Grand Prix in history and the largest Regionals in history (and the largest States I'm pretty sure - 600+).  

The point I'm making is that our PTQs are also likely on the upper range of size and they are NEVER 200+.  PTQs generally are 60-120 in size.

There may be no way to compare them - but I think there is an important point I don't want to get obscured in the minutia.  Type One is a unique format becuase it has adherents year round.  Evidence?  At Origins, the Origins Type One tournaments are ALWAYS much larger than the Extended Tournaments and also rival the Type Two events (are generally larger) except when there might be a Type Two PTQ at Origins (which I'm not sure if their are - they are generally Block Constructed or Limited).  

Stephen Menendian

[jpmeyer]

On the east coast they are generally that size.  We haven't had sub-100 people PTQs out there in like 4 years.

[Smash]

Indiana PTQs - around 100-130

Sadly, we can't get a mox tourney over like 30 people

[Dr. Sylvan]

Sadly, we can't get a mox tourney over like 30 people

Man, the last one was announced like four days in advance! I check TMD religiously, not cumagic.com. :p

In Chicagoland, my peep who played in PT NO says most of the PTQs are between 80 and 150 people, mostly in a normal curve kinda distribution between those two extremes.

[defector]

I think the number of players in a format is less significant to the number of players that wizards sells to.  Every pack that comes off the press is salable to a type 2 player, type 1 players spend more money on ebay and card stores buying singles than buying box after box of t2 legal.  At least thats what I see, case in point, my t2 friends bought 1-2 boxes of darksteel within 2 weeks of tourney legality.  I bought 4 trinispheres and pentavus's, and a handful of ther cards.  Wizards made less money on me than on any type 2 player.  On the other hand I paid 300 for ancestral recall on e-bay.  An expensive b0day present to myself that wizards made 3 dollars on 10 years ago.  This topic has been beat to death, and I guess the fact that they gave us Mind'd Desire and Tendrils is enough to be happy that Wizards makes us some cards, probably in proportion to what we buy.
defector

[bebe]

 Wizards made less money on me than on any type 2 player.

And that is all that needs saying. WotC has no desire to support our format so we are left to support it on our own. The last big Vinatge tournament in Ontario had a very large turnout for a number of reasons ...

1) It was well advertised long in advance and promoted until the date of venue.
2) The prize packages were enticing
3) We will only see two major tournaments a year in
Ontario, the others being minor events in comparison.