Getting into MTGO

[SolonJhee]

Hey everyone, I just have a couple questions about MTGO.

I've never used it before, and I used to think that paying money to play Magic online was just stupid. Now, however, I see that I can gain drafting experience by using it and that is pretty valuable to me, since I play FNM drafts every week at my local card shop.

I guess the main question I have is:

How long does a draft take on MTGO compared to a draft IRL?

I also had a bunch of other questions, such as price, best way to pay for drafts, and if I should wait til v3 is out longer, but those are all easily answered by looking at the other threads on this forum.

I know that my FNM starts at 6 and usually goes until 10-11, depending on how many we have and if the top 4 splits or not. Usually we have a turn out of anywhere from 16-24 and we'll do 3 rounds of swiss with top 8, and top 4 usually splits the prize. I was just wondering if drafts on MTGO would be faster (it seems like it) and therefore not take as much time, because I'm trying to plan on drafting when I come home from work (4 EST) and I want to know how long it will last into the night.

Thanks for all the future advice.

[bradleyjx]

Originally Posted by SolonJhee

Hey everyone, I just have a couple questions about MTGO.

I've never used it before, and I used to think that paying money to play Magic online was just stupid. Now, however, I see that I can gain drafting experience by using it and that is pretty valuable to me, since I play FNM drafts every week at my local card shop.

I guess the main question I have is:

True, but make sure you walk in realizing you can lose money faster online, since packs are MSRP and drafts are single-elimination.

How long does a draft take on MTGO compared to a draft IRL?

It's single-elimination, so if you get to the finals, the time is slightly shorter than a IRL 3-round draft, sometimes significantly shorter.

I also had a bunch of other questions, such as price, best way to pay for drafts, and if I should wait til v3 is out longer, but those are all easily answered by looking at the other threads on this forum.

Price: 3 boosters @ $3.99 + 2 event tickets @ 1.00 = USD$13.97

Paying: When you get online for the first time, look in the trade rooms for what sealed product goes for the most; usually you can get 15 tickets for a tournament pack (only $12.29), so you can get your tickets cheaper through that. Some boosters also go for 3 tickets or 2 packs for 7.

v3: Wait. There are places online and on these forums that talk about this in a larger scope, but there are still major bugs, and trading (something you want working if you're starting) just doesn't work well yet.

I know that my FNM starts at 6 and usually goes until 10-11, depending on how many we have and if the top 4 splits or not. Usually we have a turn out of anywhere from 16-24 and we'll do 3 rounds of swiss with top 8, and top 4 usually splits the prize. I was just wondering if drafts on MTGO would be faster (it seems like it) and therefore not take as much time, because I'm trying to plan on drafting when I come home from work (4 EST) and I want to know how long it will last into the night.

Thanks for all the future advice.

[SolonJhee]

I definitely did not know they were single elimination. That would make them probably 3-4 hours which isn't that bad, if not shorter then that, which would be even better. Single elimination kind of sucks for testing, but you get to practice drafting your pool at least.

Yeah I knew about the tickets thing. Someone suggested in one of these threads buying 10th packs and selling them for tickets. You just have to check the going rates on everything. It's still cheaper then what I pay at my store, which is $15 every friday for a FNM draft.

Thanks for the help. I know I should wait til v3 fixes its bugs, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to wait that long, since now that I know you can do this, coupled with the fact that drafting is one of my hobbies, we'll see how long I can hold out.

[bradleyjx]

I'd suggest right now that you get an account and just fool around on the game; don't worry about spending anything, but it won't hurt to know where things are, and to know how the interface behaves.

Even if v3 doesn't quite work, you can still get on

[Mega D]

I haven't been on v3 yet, but the last version had a room where you could play with core set precons for free in order to learn the interface. I highly recommend doing something like that. Magic online is a different world and it can take a lot of practice to figure out how to do certain things. You don't want to discover that a certain action is trickier than you'd realized in the middle of a draft when it could cause you to lose. So play in the free room (assuming it exists) or even just get a precon and play with it in the casual room. Morningtide's Battalion precon has a lot of good stuff in it as they go.

[hamtastic]

About MTGO Packs costing more than MTGP Packs: True. The only difference is that you can use your prizes in the next draft on MTGO, so even if you only get past round one every other draft, your price per draft is about the same as MTGP.

Math:
3.99*3 + $2 = 13.97 (for the first draft) If you get past round one, you get two packs that you can use in your next draft, making it:
3.99 + $2 = 5.99, or an average cost of $9.98.

Bear in mind that the best players in the world play on MTGO, and the competition is probably higher than your local scene (depending on who plays in your local scene, I guess).

[Binary]

Originally Posted by Mega D

I haven't been on v3 yet, but the last version had a room where you could play with core set precons for free in order to learn the interface. I highly recommend doing something like that. Magic online is a different world and it can take a lot of practice to figure out how to do certain things. You don't want to discover that a certain action is trickier than you'd realized in the middle of a draft when it could cause you to lose. So play in the free room (assuming it exists) or even just get a precon and play with it in the casual room. Morningtide's Battalion precon has a lot of good stuff in it as they go.

The V3 free trial servers aren't up yet last I checked (which was last Friday). Honestly I'm waiting on that to happen before I make a decision as to whether to open a real account.

[OOMatter]

Originally Posted by Mega D

I haven't been on v3 yet, but the last version had a room where you could play with core set precons for free in order to learn the interface. I highly recommend doing something like that. Magic online is a different world and it can take a lot of practice to figure out how to do certain things. You don't want to discover that a certain action is trickier than you'd realized in the middle of a draft when it could cause you to lose. So play in the free room (assuming it exists) or even just get a precon and play with it in the casual room. Morningtide's Battalion precon has a lot of good stuff in it as they go.

The free trial server isn't up on v3 yet. Most likely it won't be up until they iron out more of the issues in v3. They kinda rushed it out before it was fully cooked since v2.5 was dying a slow death.

I spent about 3 hours drafting 2 drafts today on the shm beta and the drafts work just fine. I'd hold back on starting if you can because the trading and the store are a little buggy right now. So if you can wait another month or so you'll probably have a more enjoyable starting experience.

[PsychoP4R4N014]

Yeah OOMatter, I agree. This is my First time playing MTGO and i didn't get to experenice 2.5. Right now the Server is down for Maintence because they had problems syncing peoples collections, so they wouldn't display properly (i.e at all.) soo it's great i love the experenice but the buggyness does make it little less enjoyable, so..enjoy your local scene for awhile and let them work out the issues.