Sure, I certainly agree with that. There are a very small few making like $18k/year in EV. Of course it's always possible to run hot, which almost all the "pros" are doing by definition.

imo MTG is moneywhores

then again there's also thousands of 'professional' poker players who made a little bit of money 3 years ago and have been buried in makeup since then!

Anyone know how much they can make at writing articles. It always seemed to me like the playing would be break even at best but you could probably make decent money selling strategy articles.

I would love to know who is making the most money from MTGO. Assuming it is one of the guys running bots or something, but no idea how profitable that is.

There is less luck involved with Magic than there is with Poker, while luck is an element and it has won and lost me games it seems to be being overvalued in this thread.

I've won 10+ drafts in a row before, some of the top limited players in the world almost never lose. When MTGO first started and the prize pool wasn't capped there were some MTG pro making a lot more than 18k a year.

Sure, it might be reasonable to expect to almost always win against new players. But if you play against someone who has a clue there is no way the top limited players will almost never lose. I think they would struggle greatly to win more than 75% of matches against the average field on MTGO.

Sealed is going to be even worse. Sometimes you'll just get a crappy pool where no amount of good play is going to save you.

I think 75% is low estimate vs the average mtgo draft field.

LSV thinks he is barely +EV in drafts, possibly only break-even. Highly doubt there are too many more better than him.

i think the MTG scene is just completely oblivious to the amount of luck involved in their game

when i used to play competitively players never seemed to acknowledge luck unless one of these conditions were met:

1. they're losing
2. manascrew
3. late game topdeck situation

the late game topdeck situations were the most annoying

we'd both be halfway through our decks and one player would have a next-turn kill unless the other player can draw x card, and everyone in the MTG scene will act like this is the moment where luck suddenly became a factor

we each shuffled 60 cards, each random order of 60 cards collided with the other to exponentiate the number of different completely random ways these two decks could interact with each other throughout the course of a game

but none of that was luck, only this last card is luck

the truth is the actual gameplay of MTG is extremely simple, difficult or close decisions are pretty rare, and actually making the best decision where most people would've made the second-best decision and having that win a game you would'e otherwise lost, that just almost never happens

the game is usually decided as soon as both players are done shuffling, the gameplay is just done to figure out which player received the winning shuffle

iirc there was a website w stats on all daily + premier events and the best plays won somewhere around 65% of all matches. i think the number is around the same for PTs.

and FWIW the average mtgo draft field is not that soft (esp 8-4s) mtg was waaaaaaaay softer be4 mtgo. basically everyone can test 24/7 and all decklists are published on wizards.com/magiconline => whats happening.

That sounds reasonable, so if they're winning 65% of their matches, that means they are only winning 55-60% of their games. So yes, luck is a huge factor if your opponent is at least decent.

Now this might not be entirely applicable to constructed, someone could (and have) obviously come up with a new deck that could have a huge win% in the current metagame until it adapts.

Mtg has so much variance compared to poker it's not even funny. Atleast with poker you can play 20-30 large mtt's a year. with mtg it's 3.

Aegis Angel isn't that great. Doom blade for me, can't fault you for taking shock though if you think black might not be open.

cite?

Damn, some really cool stuff in Innistrad.

Double sided cards, including the new Garruk. Really excited to see the rest of the set.

http://mtgsalvation.com/innistrad-spoiler.html

OK, so I started playing some MTGO after the M12 release. It seemed like a good spot to start again w/ a fresh core set. I don't really like playing constructed - limited is more fun to me.

I played a 4-3-2-2 draft and uploaded it. Thoughts appreciated.

http://www.raredraft.com/watch?d=2wc7z

p1p2 it's def. a mistake to pick Azure Mage over the 2nd Sorin's Thirst. Mage is OK but not that impressive bc the format is quite aggressive. Sorin's Thirst is a better card, plus you don't want to pick a second color that early, and you want to cut the black cards as much as possible.

p2p2 i'm taking Ponder, you're going for a controllish deck and will have no use for a creature that is mediocre at best in aggressive decks. Other option is Devouring Swarm which is going to be decent if you get a Skeleton. Cancels wheel all the time

p2p5 I actually like mill decks in this format, but this isn't one so I would've taken the Deathmark

p2p6 disagree, you have nothing stellar to tutor and mind rot is decent

p2p7 I take the 2nd Frost Breath, you need some creatures but Bat is really bad in anything but RB bc it has a lot of 1-drops

p3p1 Reassembling Skeleton is a really good card, and you don't want that many counterspells

p3p2 - Swiftfoot Boots is really bad. At this point your deck needs a few solid creatures, and Sphinx is perfect for that.

p3p5 - Phantasmal Dragon is almost unplayable in this format, there's just too many cheap playable cards that destroy it in every color. Close call between Adept and Looter, Adept is prob. a better card

In the end your deck as the shape of a good control deck (some removal, some countermagic, and lots of cards that generate card advantage like Azure Mage, Gravedigger or Divination) but you're forced to play bad aggressive creatures like Tormented Soul, Bloodrage Vampire, Bat or Phantasmal Bear that don't have much to do with your overall strategy. I would have definitely played Amphin Cutthhroat over one of those. You also have to maindeck Wring Flesh, it's very good, lots of 1 toughness creatures in this format. Deck is still decent bc the colors were open (U is almost always open) but could've been a lot better.

Thanks for the analysis. Still learning Seems like U is always open for me, which is fine, because I like playing U!

Is anyone interested in organizing drafts off one of those free programs? That way, it's free and we can do older blocks for fun.

Id be interested in PLAYING. I think ive spent about $3000 on drafts this year.

New set looks heavily Twilight/True Blood influenced, not sure how I feel about that.

I am interested in doing drafts for fun. The other thing we can do is set up a cube draft.

In one of Mark Rosewaters last articles he basically said that Gothic was on the drawing board for a while but really only got the green light because Gothic has gotten a lot more popular in recent times. It kind of worries me that Magic would sell out a little like this and I hope this is a one block thing and we dont start to see lots of sets based on popular culture. To be fair the new set looks like it still fits in the Magic universe but I do prefer when WOTC designs new worlds and doesnt just nick them from previously created worlds, which they have done from time to time, ie Arabian Nights.

No, it is playing off classic horror themes. What monsters are more iconic than Werewolves, Vampires, and Zombies?