https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2019-01-14

Finally an update with *nearly* only good news? Dupe protection? YAY! Ranked goes Bo3? YAY!! ...

Nice! I look forward to opening my boosters once the patch arrives!

Well, duplicate protection is there, BUT:

- only applies to Rares and Mythic Rares ~~ I guess that's fine.
- when there's no other card from the same set and rarity, we get 20 gems (40 for Mythic) ~~ niche case, don't really care, but 10% of a new booster is a small consolation prize
- doesn't apply to limited boosters: 5th copies skip the check for another eligible card and directly convert into gems as per the above rate ~~ disappointing
- rare ICRs only awarded for positive win-records (ignoring 1-5% odds), this includes the fun events, no more guaranteed rare ICRs ~~ Disgusting PR stunt sugarcoating a near 100% decrease in reward with a 50% entry fee cost reduction

TL;DR: buying boosters: clearly improved, playing events: potentially worse

Disappointing? There's no way they could apply the full dupes clause to limited, that would be silly and break the game especially when you have only a few left or even zero left.
Doing the draft/sealed as normal and then converting to gems later makes perfect sense.

The tiny % chance to increase is kind of lame but I also don't remember it happening to me much anyway and seems the same for guaranteed 1st and second being at the top.

Why do you think a 5th Rare in Draft needs to be worse than a 5th Rare in a purchased booster?

The Rare in a draft pack does not only have collection applications.
Imagine crafting the 5 best Rares because you need them for Constructed, and you just severely hampered your Limited experience, because you're not first-picking a garbage Rare anyways and you're not getting passed bombs while you can definitely see garbage Rares late.

That plus the fact that most Limited events reward you with packs of the same expansion anyhow makes me think that excluding draft packs from it is actually better by a LOT.

Because I'm drafting with the intention of playing it...it would be nonsensical to play with the card all draft then have it magically change into a different rare after.

Comes down to "less is more"?
I see that you don't want an incentive to rare-draft so you don't feel bad for passing them. My approach was rather to get the best of both worlds, enjoy drafting but upgrading my collection as much as possible with the 5k investment. Of course that led to suboptimal picks but I felt just as affected by the 5th-card issue as I am when I open one in a booster. And I'm not getting a solution which further shifts incentive towards boosters instead of playing events which is stupid on a phenomenal level.


Is that different than the fiction that you open a Steam Vents and the shop-owner exchanges it for an Overgrown Tomb?

Apologies in advance if I sound aggressive. I'm not
Rather amused by what WotC tries to get away with again after weeks of experiencing GGG's love for their players.

It is, yes, because those are machinations that go on behind the scenes. Rather than the store owner exchanging a Steam Vents for an Overgrown Tomb, this is just the game's equivalent of saying "well, you don't want another Steam Vents, so we'll just say you were trying to buy the Overgrown Tomb." The packs are doubling as the only way to get singles.

Whereas in draft, I'd be okay drafting a 5th copy to play in my draft deck. Just the same as you could consciously choose to not draft that rare and focus on your collection.

You can't exactly have draft if you remove the cards you're drafting, you need to keep them just so the draft actually works and you can actually play.
What happens when you have all the cards? You can't draft any rare bombs at all and you can't get anywhere in the draft and before that you get more and more limited.

The cards you get turning into gems afterwards if they're 5th copies IS the best of both worlds as far as draft can go.

So if that is worse then yes I do think draft should be slightly worse so that draft can actually even happen in the first place.

Well then.....

If I can figure out how to recover my account, I may actually log in and spend the gems I purchased in beta.

Wait........... this game is still in beta? How in the **** are they able to make changes like this in a "beta" without another account wipe?

Because the actual beta was the closed beta, this is now a modern day beta which is basically the game but you get to keep the "it's still in beta!" argument when they do stupid stuff

If you never logged into open beta and upgraded your account before the end of December (IIRC) you have to contact support now to fix it.

I was against them going into open beta without finalizing their economy. I wanted to wait until they had done so before getting back into it. Because I spent real money only because of the upcoming wipes and didn't want to waste that.

Now you are telling me that if I want to play the game, I have to rejoin the beta and hope WOTC Customer Support will care enough to help me get those gems back? In a format I've been avoiding because they still (as evidenced by this thread) haven't figured out what they want the economy people are spending real money on to look like?

It sounds like a terrible idea to log in at all. In fact, it sounds like they still haven't gotten their **** together after throwing Stainless under the bus.

Counterpoint: it's borderline perfect and the greatest way to play magic there is, paper included.

I was going to craft some Tocatli Honor Guards to try them out in my Selesnya sideboard, but with the next patch so close I decided not to. RIP, no more drafts for me either, gotta save everything for when the patch hits and I inevitably go into draft mode until the constructed meta shakes out.

The greatest way to play Magic there is involves good food, good atmosphere, and sitting around the table with friends.

Drunk 4FFA w/ chat on DOTP is also probably better than faceless opponents. Even if Forest is considered a declaration of war.

I think you're a little too negative on it; it is improving all the time and is very great and the prices of gems have so far not changed.
I can see how it seems weird to have "beta" whilst being able to pay for things but its open beta so its basically released; everyone can just play it like any other game so there is no need for further wipes and their economy does have to be tested somehow.

The thing with needing to go to support is weird but also it would be silly to keep open the option to directly transfer your closed beta account forever, as such it made sense that they closed that option after a good few months.
At any rate the support team had been very good and recovering your closed beta stuff is something they have been told to do.