Magic: The Gathering Online
Encyclopedia
Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) or Magic Online is a direct video game adaptation of Magic: The Gathering
, utilizing the concept of a virtual economy
in order to preserve the collectible aspect of the card game. It is played through an Internet
service operated by Wizards of the Coast
, which went "live" on 24 June 2002. Users can play the game or trade cards with other users. It is only officially available for the Microsoft Windows
operating system.
As of February 2007, Magic Online has over 300,000 registered accounts; however this does not represent the true number of players, since people are allowed to register multiple accounts. At different times during the day and night, Magic Online hosts on average 2,000-4,000 simultaneously logged in accounts. According to Wizards of the Coast
, Magic Online is "somewhere between 30% to 50% of the total Magic business."
to the physical card game. Digitized artwork reproduces the look of a card game, while users click on cards to play them on a virtual tabletop. Each game is hosted by the server, which applies a rules engine to enforce proper play. The logic for handling card interactions is provided by Perl
scripts. Though the rules set as a whole is largely accurate and works well enough for production, it occasionally suffers from bugs. Similarly, built-in engine limitations frequently impose clumsy user interface
characteristics such as having to click away a large number of pop-up windows that can be generated by certain cards. This is one of the issues being addressed by the revamped version 3 software.
Players are free to setup or join games of their choice. In addition, official events such as 8-man constructed, limited sealed deck and drafts, as well as larger tournaments take place according to a regular schedule. Entering events requires an investment of sealed packs and/or event tickets, but winners are also rewarded with additional product. Leagues were another method of sanctioned play which are tentatively scheduled to return in 2011.
. WotC was skeptical about whether such a system could actually be implemented. LLS then created a tech demo
to prove to WotC that an online collectible card game
could work. WotC was sufficiently convinced and contracted LLS to develop the service, which was then known as Magic Online with Digital Objects (MODO). Initially, the idea of charging for virtual goods, as opposed to a subscription model with unlimited access, was greeted with skepticism. Additionally, concerns were floated over how solid the server and trading code would be; if exploits were found, the entire economy could easily be destroyed. After a period of beta-testing, the game became available to the general public in June 2002. The name was changed from MODO to its final commercial title, Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO). The trading code has proven resilient so far; while the game engine has faltered several times, and ordinary fraud
is a risk, there have been no mass-devaluations of cards. So far, no one has been able to give themselves free cards or exploit the server to damage other users' collections.
In 2003, the Magic: The Gathering Invitational was held online for the first time. It was played on Magic Online each year from then on until 2007, when the Invitational was moved back offline.
in July 2003, which was ambitiously scheduled to coincide with the paper release. The goal was to release version 2 of the software with new functionality and implement the changes in rules that 8th Edition had brought. Version 2 was released on schedule, but the servers constantly crashed, and rules mistakes and other bugs were numerous. The game went into no-pay mode while temporary beta servers were opened to allow players to practice playing in for-pay formats. Eventually, normal service was restored.
As a concession for these issues, Wizards planned to throw "Chuck's Virtual Party," a weekend of free tournaments after the problems settled down. Unfortunately, it turned out that each user took up more memory in version 2 than the lightweight design of version 1. The result was that the servers crashed again under the strain.
In retrospect, some have merely chalked the decision to remove Leaping Lizard up to hubris. Others, however, point to certain intractabilities in later maintenance that suggest that Leaping Lizard had not delivered a very extensible
program that, by nature, was too monolithic
and hard to improve. Wizards of the Coast has said that "[Leaping Lizard's] 2.5 interface and backend are not scalable like we need it to be. It wasn't written with the goal of ten thousand users in mind, it was written thinking a couple thousand." According to the developers, there was a hard limit of 4,400 players in version 2.5. Regardless, Wizards decided that version 2.0 was not worth supporting indefinitely. They decided to maintain version 2.0 in the background, but to start a new development team to rebuild Magic Online from the ground up. The labors of this new project would be called Magic Online version 3.
The version 2 platform was shutdown on April 9, 2008, in preparation of the version 3 launch.
website. Also on that day, an official MTGO 3.0 Launch info page was opened, where MTGO developers can share their info in a blog which is updated two or three times a week. In August 2007, version 3 began open beta testing, and was released April 22, 2008.
, which had been released in printed form in the fall of 2000; all sets moving forward were made available online as well, with the exception of the Unhinged self-parody expansion. New sets come out on Magic Online about three or four weeks after their printed counterparts. The delay is a policy measure to appease "brick & mortar" retailers.
Wizards of the Coast has since released more pre-Invasion cards online. In the fall of 2005, Mirage
was released online, nine years after its 1996 print release. This set was chosen as the earliest set usable on Magic Online because it was the first to be designed with both Limited and Constructed play in mind and the first to be intended as part of a three-set block. Additionally, Wizards unambiguously owns the rights to the artwork in Mirage block, and Mirage block contains no ante cards (unlike Ice Age
and Homelands
). It has been confirmed that the eventual goal of the developers is to have every expansion set from Mirage onward available online.
For cards released before Mirage
, special MTGO-exclusive compilation sets called Masters Edition
s were created. These sets range in size from 195 to 269 cards. Most of the cards in a given set were previously unavailable on Magic Online. Exceptions are usually made to create enjoyable Masters Edition limited environments or to make specifically illustrated cards available online. The first Masters Edition was released on September 10, 2007, with Masters Edition II
following in 2008, Masters Edition III
in 2009, and Masters Edition IV
in early 2011. As of January 2011, Magic Online is missing about 800 cards from the pre-Mirage and Portal sets. Most of the missing cards do not impact normal game play, as many older cards have become outclassed, or functional reprints have come out. While the Power Nine
are still missing, nearly all other pre-Mirage cards usually considered tournament worthy have been released online.
The sets from Mirage to Prophecy
are in the process of being released every few months. In April 2006, Visions
, the second set of the Mirage Block, was released online. The third set, Weatherlight, was released on December 12, 2007. The Tempest
block has been released in its entirety. Stronghold
went on sale on April 13, 2009, and Exodus
was released on December 7, 2009. Of the Urza's block Urza's Saga
went on sale on March 29, 2010, Urza's Legacy
followed in June, and Urza's Destiny
was released on April 13, 2011. Afterwards the Mercadian Masques
block will follow in December 2011. The Masques block will be released in Booster Packs containings cards from all expansions of the block. After the release of the Mercadian Masques block all of the cards from Mirage forward will be online, with the execption of several cards from the Portal
sets.
. Once purchased, packs may be opened, traded, or used as entry materials for events.
Foil cards are available online. They are distinguished in their virtual form by a glossier appearance and an intermittent "shiny" animation.
"Deck Editor" and "Collection" interfaces exist to allow players to build Constructed decks or browse their collections.
The redemption policy offers a medium of exchange between the digital card market and the physical card market, though this is one-way only as there is no way to convert real cards to digital cards.
's website, but to play the game, it is necessary to register an account and purchase cards. Registration costs $9.99 and comes with a new account package. This package has 2 event tickets, one Magic 2012 booster, and 300 common and uncommon cards. It is recommended for beginners not to open the booster as it loses value when doing so.
Users may trade cards, sealed packs, event tickets, and in-game avatars
(which are released for special events as promotions) with other players. Two venues exist in the current version of the game to facilitate this:
There used to exist other suggested methods of trading, but they have been removed in favor of the Classifieds, as the other methods were inefficient and prone to spam. A large number of the users posting offers to buy or sell are entrepreneurs with large collections looking to make a profit by selling cards at their own websites or on eBay
in addition to their in-game trades (though in practice the amount of money that can be made heavily trading in the game is not large). Technically any transfer of cards in the game is not considered a "sale" because, for legal reasons, the digital objects are not actually owned by the collector, but rather Wizards of the Coast themselves. This enormously simplifies transactions, as issues such as import/export laws, duties, and underage concerns are sidestepped. Wizards has currently shown "benign neglect" of players buying and selling digital objects for (legal) currency on the secondary market. Due to this neglect, however, there are problems with fraud, including non-delivery of paid-for product and false claims of non-delivery resulting in reversals of Paypal payments.
unit of in-game currency; demand for them is sustained by the tens of thousands of tickets used up every day to pay for tournament entry. Every single ticket in the market was purchased from Wizards of the Coast for US$1, offering a baseline. Since tickets can be traded between players and they have a roughly fixed value in dollars, prices for cards in the trading room
s are usually quoted in tickets. When sold for money on the secondary market, a ticket is usually worth slightly less than US$1.
Magic Online allows players to use the same cards in multiple decks. Since the maximum number of copies of a card in a deck is usually 4 (the major exceptions being basic lands and ), any duplicates of a card beyond the fourth are unnecessary for deck building and can be traded off.
Due to the ease of trading away unwanted or extra cards, transaction cost
s on Magic Online are very low. While in real-life, the money gained by finding a better price at a different store might not make up for the expense in checking the other store (gas, time, effort, etc.), it's simple and quick to search for other values of a card you'd like to buy or sell online. This ensures competition where all prices move quickly towards the market price.
One inefficiency that the market does have is that since the ticket is the main unit of in-game currency, the bid/ask spread on cards is effectively fixed at one ticket. This makes buying and selling of cards quickly somewhat inefficient; other effects are that cards which cost less than a ticket must be offered in bulk (or else as standard barters). There are at any given time a large number of online 'bots', which are vendors who offer prices for buying and selling digital objects down to the hundredth of a ticket (maintaining a balance on account of fractional tickets for users where needed). Furthermore in August, 2009 the limit of cards allowed per trade was raised from 32 to 75, allowing much more flexibility.
and 1 pack of Legions
. This conveniently is exactly what would be required to do a similar event again, along with a two ticket entry cost. For the not as lucky, or those needing tickets, they can sell singles from their opened packs to help defray the costs of the next draft.
Some online tournament players fund their continued play by selling the packs they win as prizes and extra cards they open for tickets, which they then use to enter more tournaments. Successful players who are able to sustain their tournament play indefinitely this way without further monetary investment are said to have "gone infinite."
block. As a result, the preceding Invasion
block was only sold for a very short time on Magic Online. This short supply, combined with rising demand as Magic Onlines user base grew and the server became more stable, helped spike some early cards' prices. Chase cards from these early sets demand much higher prices than their paper counterparts; popular rares sell on eBay for 5 to 10 times as much as the physical version, and even commons can command a premium. Odyssey
block and 7th Edition
also had a shorter than normal "print run", though not as extreme.
To counteract the shortage of Invasion block cards, Wizards began offering Invasion block packs as prizes in special tournaments in lieu of normal prizes.
since 2009.
Booster Draft and ending with Standard. As of 2011, the structure is more similar to that of the World Championship itself with a swiss portion of Standard, Innistrad
Booster Draft, and Modern. The two most successful players after eleven rounds then determine the winner in a final match contested under the Modern format, with players allowed to change their deck for the finals.
Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
, utilizing the concept of a virtual economy
Virtual economy
A virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an Internet game...
in order to preserve the collectible aspect of the card game. It is played through an Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
service operated by Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
, which went "live" on 24 June 2002. Users can play the game or trade cards with other users. It is only officially available for the Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating system.
As of February 2007, Magic Online has over 300,000 registered accounts; however this does not represent the true number of players, since people are allowed to register multiple accounts. At different times during the day and night, Magic Online hosts on average 2,000-4,000 simultaneously logged in accounts. According to Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
, Magic Online is "somewhere between 30% to 50% of the total Magic business."
Gameplay
Magic Online is played as an electronic analogueAnalogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
to the physical card game. Digitized artwork reproduces the look of a card game, while users click on cards to play them on a virtual tabletop. Each game is hosted by the server, which applies a rules engine to enforce proper play. The logic for handling card interactions is provided by Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
scripts. Though the rules set as a whole is largely accurate and works well enough for production, it occasionally suffers from bugs. Similarly, built-in engine limitations frequently impose clumsy user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
characteristics such as having to click away a large number of pop-up windows that can be generated by certain cards. This is one of the issues being addressed by the revamped version 3 software.
Players are free to setup or join games of their choice. In addition, official events such as 8-man constructed, limited sealed deck and drafts, as well as larger tournaments take place according to a regular schedule. Entering events requires an investment of sealed packs and/or event tickets, but winners are also rewarded with additional product. Leagues were another method of sanctioned play which are tentatively scheduled to return in 2011.
Development
Leaping Lizard Software initially approached WotC with an offer to create an online version of Magic: The GatheringMagic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
. WotC was skeptical about whether such a system could actually be implemented. LLS then created a tech demo
Tech demo
A tech demo is a prototype, rough example or an otherwise incomplete version of a product, put together with the primary purpose of showcasing the idea, performance, method or the features of the product...
to prove to WotC that an online collectible card game
Collectible card game
thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...
could work. WotC was sufficiently convinced and contracted LLS to develop the service, which was then known as Magic Online with Digital Objects (MODO). Initially, the idea of charging for virtual goods, as opposed to a subscription model with unlimited access, was greeted with skepticism. Additionally, concerns were floated over how solid the server and trading code would be; if exploits were found, the entire economy could easily be destroyed. After a period of beta-testing, the game became available to the general public in June 2002. The name was changed from MODO to its final commercial title, Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO). The trading code has proven resilient so far; while the game engine has faltered several times, and ordinary fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
is a risk, there have been no mass-devaluations of cards. So far, no one has been able to give themselves free cards or exploit the server to damage other users' collections.
In 2003, the Magic: The Gathering Invitational was held online for the first time. It was played on Magic Online each year from then on until 2007, when the Invitational was moved back offline.
Version 2.0
In 2003, Wizards of the Coast decided to relieve Leaping Lizard of the responsibility of maintaining Magic Online, and took on updating it themselves with in-house programmers. The first showing of the new team was to be the online release of 8th Edition8th Edition (Magic: The Gathering)
Eighth Edition or Core Set was the standard base set for the collectible trading card game, Magic: The Gathering from its release in 2003 until 9th Edition's release in 2005...
in July 2003, which was ambitiously scheduled to coincide with the paper release. The goal was to release version 2 of the software with new functionality and implement the changes in rules that 8th Edition had brought. Version 2 was released on schedule, but the servers constantly crashed, and rules mistakes and other bugs were numerous. The game went into no-pay mode while temporary beta servers were opened to allow players to practice playing in for-pay formats. Eventually, normal service was restored.
As a concession for these issues, Wizards planned to throw "Chuck's Virtual Party," a weekend of free tournaments after the problems settled down. Unfortunately, it turned out that each user took up more memory in version 2 than the lightweight design of version 1. The result was that the servers crashed again under the strain.
In retrospect, some have merely chalked the decision to remove Leaping Lizard up to hubris. Others, however, point to certain intractabilities in later maintenance that suggest that Leaping Lizard had not delivered a very extensible
Extensibility
In software engineering, extensibility is a system design principle where the implementation takes into consideration future growth. It is a systemic measure of the ability to extend a system and the level of effort required to implement the extension...
program that, by nature, was too monolithic
Spaghetti code
Spaghetti code is a pejorative term for source code that has a complex and tangled control structure, especially one using many GOTOs, exceptions, threads, or other "unstructured" branching constructs. It is named such because program flow tends to look like a bowl of spaghetti, i.e. twisted and...
and hard to improve. Wizards of the Coast has said that "[Leaping Lizard's] 2.5 interface and backend are not scalable like we need it to be. It wasn't written with the goal of ten thousand users in mind, it was written thinking a couple thousand." According to the developers, there was a hard limit of 4,400 players in version 2.5. Regardless, Wizards decided that version 2.0 was not worth supporting indefinitely. They decided to maintain version 2.0 in the background, but to start a new development team to rebuild Magic Online from the ground up. The labors of this new project would be called Magic Online version 3.
The version 2 platform was shutdown on April 9, 2008, in preparation of the version 3 launch.
Version 3.0
Magic Online version 3 was planned to feature an updated interface and expanded in-game guidance. It was also designed so it can run on multiple servers rather than one master server. The release date slipped several times; it was originally intended to be released in late 2006, and then "the first or second quarter of 2007." External beta testing began on February 19, 2007, with the Phase 2 beta opening on March 9. In this phase, MTGO 3.0 was offered for testing to members of the FilePlanetFilePlanet
FilePlanet is a video game download service that provides demos, patches, mods and other gaming media and other gaming media downloads to its users. FilePlanet was launched, and is run by, GameSpy, which is now a subsidiary of IGN, and is one of the most used video game download sites on the...
website. Also on that day, an official MTGO 3.0 Launch info page was opened, where MTGO developers can share their info in a blog which is updated two or three times a week. In August 2007, version 3 began open beta testing, and was released April 22, 2008.
Card sets available
Most, but not all, of the physical Magic cards ever printed are available for use in Magic Online. The earliest set available upon release was InvasionInvasion (Magic: The Gathering)
Invasion is the 21st expert level set, and the first set in the Invasion block of cards of Magic: The Gathering. The rest of the block is Planeshift and Apocalypse. It contains 350 cards.-Set History:...
, which had been released in printed form in the fall of 2000; all sets moving forward were made available online as well, with the exception of the Unhinged self-parody expansion. New sets come out on Magic Online about three or four weeks after their printed counterparts. The delay is a policy measure to appease "brick & mortar" retailers.
Wizards of the Coast has since released more pre-Invasion cards online. In the fall of 2005, Mirage
Mirage (Magic: The Gathering)
Mirage was the fifteenth Magic: The Gathering set and ninth expert level set, released in October 1996. This expansion began the first official block set with one large expansion being followed by two smaller expansions all tied together through card mechanics and setting. This expansion also...
was released online, nine years after its 1996 print release. This set was chosen as the earliest set usable on Magic Online because it was the first to be designed with both Limited and Constructed play in mind and the first to be intended as part of a three-set block. Additionally, Wizards unambiguously owns the rights to the artwork in Mirage block, and Mirage block contains no ante cards (unlike Ice Age
Ice Age (Magic: The Gathering)
Ice Age is the eleventh Magic: The Gathering set and the sixth expansion set, released in June 1995. Set in the years from 450 to 2934 AR, the set describes a world set in perpetual winter due to the events in Antiquities...
and Homelands
Homelands (Magic: The Gathering)
Homelands was the thirteenth Magic: The Gathering set and seventh expert level set, released in October 1995. It was considered to be part of the Ice Age block until the announcement of Coldsnap in October 2005.- Storyline :...
). It has been confirmed that the eventual goal of the developers is to have every expansion set from Mirage onward available online.
For cards released before Mirage
Mirage (Magic: The Gathering)
Mirage was the fifteenth Magic: The Gathering set and ninth expert level set, released in October 1996. This expansion began the first official block set with one large expansion being followed by two smaller expansions all tied together through card mechanics and setting. This expansion also...
, special MTGO-exclusive compilation sets called Masters Edition
Masters Edition
Masters Edition is a Magic: The Gathering expansion, exclusive for Magic: The Gathering Online, that was released on September 10, 2007. It is the sixth compilation set, and features 195 cards printed before Mirage, 60 of each rarity and the 15 basic lands of Beta...
s were created. These sets range in size from 195 to 269 cards. Most of the cards in a given set were previously unavailable on Magic Online. Exceptions are usually made to create enjoyable Masters Edition limited environments or to make specifically illustrated cards available online. The first Masters Edition was released on September 10, 2007, with Masters Edition II
Masters Edition II
Masters Edition II is a Magic: The Gathering expansion, exclusive for Magic: The Gathering Online, that was released on September 22, 2008. It is the seventh compilation set, and features 245 cards, 80 of each rarity and the 5 snow-covered basic lands of Ice Age...
following in 2008, Masters Edition III
Masters Edition III
Masters Edition III is a Magic: The Gathering expansion, exclusive for Magic: The Gathering Online, that was released on September 7, 2009. It is the eighth compilation set, and consists of 230 cards, 70 rare, 70 uncommons, 75 commons, and 15 basic lands...
in 2009, and Masters Edition IV
Masters Edition IV
Masters Edition IV is a Magic: The Gathering expansion, exclusive for Magic: The Gathering Online, that was released on January 10, 2011. It is the ninth compilation set, and consists of 269 cards: 105 rares, 72 uncommons, 80 commons, and 12 special lands. Like all Masters Editions sets, the cards...
in early 2011. As of January 2011, Magic Online is missing about 800 cards from the pre-Mirage and Portal sets. Most of the missing cards do not impact normal game play, as many older cards have become outclassed, or functional reprints have come out. While the Power Nine
Power Nine
The term Power Nine refers to a set of nine specific cards in the game of Magic: The Gathering. These cards were only printed early in the game's history and consist of Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Mox Sapphire, Mox Jet, Mox Ruby, Mox Emerald, Mox Pearl, and Timetwister.The Power Nine...
are still missing, nearly all other pre-Mirage cards usually considered tournament worthy have been released online.
The sets from Mirage to Prophecy
Prophecy (Magic: The Gathering)
Prophecy is a Magic: The Gathering expansion set. It was the third set of the Masques block, along with the expansion Mercadian Masques and Nemesis. The Prophecy expansion consists of 143 cards. Its expansion symbol are three crystals...
are in the process of being released every few months. In April 2006, Visions
Visions (Magic: The Gathering)
Visions was the sixteenth Magic: The Gathering set and tenth expert level set, released in February 1997. This expansion continued the Mirage block by using the same setting and mechanics introduced in Mirage. The expansion symbol for Visions is a V-shaped symbol, which is the "triangle of war"...
, the second set of the Mirage Block, was released online. The third set, Weatherlight, was released on December 12, 2007. The Tempest
Tempest (Magic: The Gathering)
Tempest was the 20th Magic: The Gathering set and twelfth expert level set, and the first set in the Rath Block, released in October 1997. The release of Tempest represented a large jump in the power level of the card set, compared to the previous Mirage block. Many cards from Tempest instantly...
block has been released in its entirety. Stronghold
Stronghold (Magic: The Gathering)
Stronghold was the 21st Magic: The Gathering set and thirteenth expert level set, and the second set in the Rath Block, released in March 1998. The block includes Tempest and Exodus. Stronghold contains 143 cards...
went on sale on April 13, 2009, and Exodus
Exodus (Magic: The Gathering)
Exodus was the 22nd Magic: The Gathering set, fourteenth expert level set, and the third and final set in the Rath Block, released on 15 June 1998. Its expansion symbol is a bridge...
was released on December 7, 2009. Of the Urza's block Urza's Saga
Urza's Saga
Urza's Saga is the 15th expert level set, a 350-card Magic: The Gathering expansion set that debuted in October 1998. Some employees of Wizards consider it one of the most powerful sets ever released, with many cards now banned in tournament formats...
went on sale on March 29, 2010, Urza's Legacy
Urza's Legacy
Urza's Legacy is a Magic: The Gathering set, second in the Urza Block. Urza's Legacy was released in February 1999.-Set history:This set is the first set to feature premium cards also known as foil cards, inserted randomly into boosters and taking the place of a card in the common slot.- Storyline...
followed in June, and Urza's Destiny
Urza's Destiny
Urza's Destiny is a Magic: The Gathering set, third in the Urza Block. Urza's Destiny was released on June 23, 1999. It was released in digital form on Magic Online on April 13, 2011.- Storyline :...
was released on April 13, 2011. Afterwards the Mercadian Masques
Mercadian Masques
Mercadian Masques is the nineteenth Magic: The Gathering expansion and was released in October 1999 as the first set in the Masques block. It is notable for being the first set not protected by Wizards of the Coast's "Reprint Policy"...
block will follow in December 2011. The Masques block will be released in Booster Packs containings cards from all expansions of the block. After the release of the Mercadian Masques block all of the cards from Mirage forward will be online, with the execption of several cards from the Portal
Portal (Magic: The Gathering)
Portal is the eighteenth Magic: The Gathering set and first starter level set, released on May 1, 1997. Depending on the language, the set contains between 221 and 228 cards.-Set history:...
sets.
Reception
The original Magic Online generally met favorable reviews, usually ranking in the high seventies on a 100 point scale. Version 2 of Magic Online was very similar to version 1 regarding the interface and functionality. Thus the problems of stability in the transition phase from version 1 to version 2 stood out in the perception of the public. Version 3 was released in April 2008. Community responses to the new client was largely negative in the beginning, due to reduced functionality of the new client, its perceived ugliness, and plenitude of bugs. Still, a large Magic Online community exists and grows due to the core functionality of the game working at replicating the paper Magic: The Gathering.Parallels to paper Magic
All cards that enter circulation originate from sealed booster packs or other products; on Magic Online, these packs are represented as digital objects tied to a player's account. Virtual packs are purchased from within the client at MSRPSuggested retail price
The manufacturer's suggested retail price , list price or recommended retail price of a product is the price which the manufacturer recommends that the retailer sell the product. The intention was to help to standardise prices among locations...
. Once purchased, packs may be opened, traded, or used as entry materials for events.
Foil cards are available online. They are distinguished in their virtual form by a glossier appearance and an intermittent "shiny" animation.
"Deck Editor" and "Collection" interfaces exist to allow players to build Constructed decks or browse their collections.
Redemption
Wizards of the Coast allows collectors who have assembled a full set of digital cards to exchange them for a factory set of printed cards. Regular cards and foils cannot be mixed. Each set is eligible for a period of up to 4 years after the online release. This program was initially created in order to allay doubt and uncertainty over the investment into virtual cards. However, due to the cost of stocking and shipping the factory sets, WotC eventually adjusted the policy to charge a shipping premium for each set redeemed, dissuading players from utilizing this option. Wizards of the Coast came under serious criticism for this price change because players feel that the cost of redemption is incorporated into the purchase cost of the digital cards, so they should not be made to pay again for the redemption service.The redemption policy offers a medium of exchange between the digital card market and the physical card market, though this is one-way only as there is no way to convert real cards to digital cards.
In-game economy
The client software for Magic Online may be downloaded for free from Wizards of the CoastWizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...
's website, but to play the game, it is necessary to register an account and purchase cards. Registration costs $9.99 and comes with a new account package. This package has 2 event tickets, one Magic 2012 booster, and 300 common and uncommon cards. It is recommended for beginners not to open the booster as it loses value when doing so.
Users may trade cards, sealed packs, event tickets, and in-game avatars
Avatar (virtual reality)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
(which are released for special events as promotions) with other players. Two venues exist in the current version of the game to facilitate this:
- "Classifieds," which acts as a searchable bulletin board on which players post buy requests for certain cards, or notices of cards they own that are available for trade/sale.
- User-created chat rooms, such as the unofficial Auction room, where traders can sell larger and often bulk numbers of cards quickly to buyers looking for a discount.
There used to exist other suggested methods of trading, but they have been removed in favor of the Classifieds, as the other methods were inefficient and prone to spam. A large number of the users posting offers to buy or sell are entrepreneurs with large collections looking to make a profit by selling cards at their own websites or on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
in addition to their in-game trades (though in practice the amount of money that can be made heavily trading in the game is not large). Technically any transfer of cards in the game is not considered a "sale" because, for legal reasons, the digital objects are not actually owned by the collector, but rather Wizards of the Coast themselves. This enormously simplifies transactions, as issues such as import/export laws, duties, and underage concerns are sidestepped. Wizards has currently shown "benign neglect" of players buying and selling digital objects for (legal) currency on the secondary market. Due to this neglect, however, there are problems with fraud, including non-delivery of paid-for product and false claims of non-delivery resulting in reversals of Paypal payments.
Economy
Event tickets act as a de factoDe facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
unit of in-game currency; demand for them is sustained by the tens of thousands of tickets used up every day to pay for tournament entry. Every single ticket in the market was purchased from Wizards of the Coast for US$1, offering a baseline. Since tickets can be traded between players and they have a roughly fixed value in dollars, prices for cards in the trading room
Trading room
A trading-room gathers traders operating on financial markets.The trading-room is also often called the front office.The terms dealing-room and trading-floor are also used, the latter being inspired from that of a open outcry stock exchange....
s are usually quoted in tickets. When sold for money on the secondary market, a ticket is usually worth slightly less than US$1.
Magic Online allows players to use the same cards in multiple decks. Since the maximum number of copies of a card in a deck is usually 4 (the major exceptions being basic lands and ), any duplicates of a card beyond the fourth are unnecessary for deck building and can be traded off.
Due to the ease of trading away unwanted or extra cards, transaction cost
Transaction cost
In economics and related disciplines, a transaction cost is a cost incurred in making an economic exchange . For example, most people, when buying or selling a stock, must pay a commission to their broker; that commission is a transaction cost of doing the stock deal...
s on Magic Online are very low. While in real-life, the money gained by finding a better price at a different store might not make up for the expense in checking the other store (gas, time, effort, etc.), it's simple and quick to search for other values of a card you'd like to buy or sell online. This ensures competition where all prices move quickly towards the market price.
One inefficiency that the market does have is that since the ticket is the main unit of in-game currency, the bid/ask spread on cards is effectively fixed at one ticket. This makes buying and selling of cards quickly somewhat inefficient; other effects are that cards which cost less than a ticket must be offered in bulk (or else as standard barters). There are at any given time a large number of online 'bots', which are vendors who offer prices for buying and selling digital objects down to the hundredth of a ticket (maintaining a balance on account of fractional tickets for users where needed). Furthermore in August, 2009 the limit of cards allowed per trade was raised from 32 to 75, allowing much more flexibility.
Automated trading
Magic Online has accumulated a secondary market composed of automated traders, which have become the most common way to obtain cards. These traders, known as "bots", are accounts running programs designed to trade cards at variable prices and qualities. A simple bot might be one that will buy any three rares for one ticket, and offer any two rares it has for a ticket. More complicated bots can maintain detailed price lists and notice trends; for example, if many traders are selling one particular card, that is a clue that the bid price is too high, and it should either stop buying that card or automatically lower the price it bids for it. Lastly, some bots are designed to help advertise competing sellers prices and give users a general sense of the values of cards they have.Tournament effects on the market
Drafters and their recently acquired cards represent a main source of singles to the market. Winners in any tournament usually get balanced amounts of the packs used to enter; for example, someone who won 3 packs in an Onslaught-Onslaught-Legions draft would receive 2 packs of OnslaughtOnslaught (Magic: The Gathering)
Onslaught is the 27th Magic: The Gathering expert-level expansion set. It was released in October 2002. The set's main theme is creature types , and much of the game play concerns interactions between these "tribes". The story continues the saga of the Mirari from the previous block of expansion sets...
and 1 pack of Legions
Legions (Magic: The Gathering)
Legions is the second set in the Onslaught block of cards of Magic: The Gathering, along with the expansions Onslaught and Scourge. It contained 145 cards which continued on the themes started in Onslaught. Its expansion symbol is two spears behind a shield.-Set history:Legions is the only...
. This conveniently is exactly what would be required to do a similar event again, along with a two ticket entry cost. For the not as lucky, or those needing tickets, they can sell singles from their opened packs to help defray the costs of the next draft.
Some online tournament players fund their continued play by selling the packs they win as prizes and extra cards they open for tickets, which they then use to enter more tournaments. Successful players who are able to sustain their tournament play indefinitely this way without further monetary investment are said to have "gone infinite."
Shortages
When Magic Online launched in the summer of 2002, the current set of the time was late OdysseyOdyssey (Magic: The Gathering)
Odyssey is the 24th Magic: The Gathering expert-level expansion set. Released in September, 2001, Odyssey is the first set in the Odyssey Block. Its expansion symbol is a small image of the Mirari .-Storyline:...
block. As a result, the preceding Invasion
Invasion (Magic: The Gathering)
Invasion is the 21st expert level set, and the first set in the Invasion block of cards of Magic: The Gathering. The rest of the block is Planeshift and Apocalypse. It contains 350 cards.-Set History:...
block was only sold for a very short time on Magic Online. This short supply, combined with rising demand as Magic Onlines user base grew and the server became more stable, helped spike some early cards' prices. Chase cards from these early sets demand much higher prices than their paper counterparts; popular rares sell on eBay for 5 to 10 times as much as the physical version, and even commons can command a premium. Odyssey
Odyssey (Magic: The Gathering)
Odyssey is the 24th Magic: The Gathering expert-level expansion set. Released in September, 2001, Odyssey is the first set in the Odyssey Block. Its expansion symbol is a small image of the Mirari .-Storyline:...
block and 7th Edition
7th Edition (Magic: The Gathering)
7th Edition was a Magic: The Gathering set printed in 2001. It is the only core set since Alpha to have introduced all-new art for every card. A white-bordered set, it was first available on April 2, 2001. The set contained 350 cards...
also had a shorter than normal "print run", though not as extreme.
To counteract the shortage of Invasion block cards, Wizards began offering Invasion block packs as prizes in special tournaments in lieu of normal prizes.
Magic Online World Championship
The Magic Online World Championship has been held each year in conjunction with the Magic: The Gathering World ChampionshipMagic: The Gathering World Championship
The Magic: The Gathering World Championships have been held annually since 1994. It is the most important tournament in the game of Magic: The Gathering, offering to the winner a cash prize of $45,000. Originally open to all competitors, Worlds is now an invitation-only event and the last Pro Tour...
since 2009.
Eligibility
The 2009 tournament contained only 8 players, the winners of seven end-of-season championships and the Magic Online Player of the Year. Since then the tournament has been expanded to include 12 players, the winners of ten end-of-season championships, the Magic Online Player of the Year and the winner of a last chance qualifier.Tournament Structure
The structure of the tournament has altered over the years. The 2010 tournament consisted of rounds of Extended, followed by Masters Edition IVMasters Edition IV
Masters Edition IV is a Magic: The Gathering expansion, exclusive for Magic: The Gathering Online, that was released on January 10, 2011. It is the ninth compilation set, and consists of 269 cards: 105 rares, 72 uncommons, 80 commons, and 12 special lands. Like all Masters Editions sets, the cards...
Booster Draft and ending with Standard. As of 2011, the structure is more similar to that of the World Championship itself with a swiss portion of Standard, Innistrad
Innistrad
Innistrad is a Magic: The Gathering expansion set released September 30, 2011. It is the first set of the Innistrad block. Innistrad is a "top-down" designed set based around Gothic horror. The sets mechanics and effects are mainly based around graveyard themes, with a minor focus on tribal...
Booster Draft, and Modern. The two most successful players after eleven rounds then determine the winner in a final match contested under the Modern format, with players allowed to change their deck for the finals.
Winners
| Year | MTGO Name | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | Anathik |  Anssi Myllymäki |
| 2010 | Jabs |  Carlos RomãoCarlos Romão Carlos Eduardo Romão is a Brazilian Magic: The Gathering player. He is best known for his win at the 2002 World Championships. Along with Diego Ostrovich, he is widely regarded as the first South American to achieve success on the Pro Tour, and was the first South American to win a Pro... |
| 2011 | reiderrabbit |  Reid Duke |
External links
- Official site of Magic: The Gathering Online
- PREs Magic the Gathering Online Player Run Events
- Official "New Player" forum "Magic the Gathering Online" Beginner Tutorial