============= PARADISE POST ============= Issue 5. November 2003. This newsletter is sent to all MTGParadise.com Forum Members. To unsubscribe email contact@mtgparadise.com with your forum username and your account will be deleted. FEATURE SPONSORS – Advertisers email contact@mtgparadise.com ---------------- CARDSHARK - www.cardshark.com Cardshark is the ultimate marketplace for BUYING and SELLING collectable games. We currently support Magic, MAGIC ONLINE, and Lord of the Rings. There are NO LISTING FEES to start selling and all payments are made via PayPal. You'll be amazed at how easy it is to buy and sell cards with CardShark.com. Click this link and make a $10 purchase today and get a FREE BOOSTER PACK! http://www.cardshark.com/default.asp?referral=cardshark&source=mtgpnews2 --------------- GAMES PARADISE - www.gamesparadise.com.au Order Online or 1300 139 202 SPECIAL: All Boosters Boxes $149 AUD free delivery (Australia) when you mention "mtgparadise forums" in the special comments section of the online order. (Note: amount will be deducted when the order is put through the terminals manually). --------------- Hello readers and welcome to yet another edition of the Paradise Post. This fortnight has been a fast one, not only because I have had exams rapidly approaching and looming over me but because we have once again witnessed a lightning speed Extended Pro Tour with Turn 4 kills being well down on the speedometer for the format as a whole. I'll be bringing you the wrap up of the tournament and highlighting the key cards (including lands) that you can expect to see running rampant this summer. I'll also give you a couple of results from State Championships that managed to slip through the cracks of the last issue, catch up with the world of Magic Online including the unmitigated disaster that was Chucks Virtual Party and the upcoming artifact explosion and as a special bonus I've been given the go-ahead by your wonderful webmaster to give a guideline to trading your precious cardboard over the internet. All in all it looks like a jam-packed issue of the post so let's get into it. Pro Tour New Orleans As I alluded to earlier, Pro Tour New Orleans was run from the 31st of October to the 2nd of December with, Extended being the format that the pros would have to battle it out in. Recent bannings had been made to ensure that the format would be a kinder, gentler extended where massive first turn reanimated monsters and deckings off a Frantic Search fuelled Mind's Desire would be long forgotten nightmares, an environment where Spiritmongers would wander freely, this time the pros couldn't break it... or could they? What the Big Easy saw that weekend was nothing short of total and utter brokenness. Is it turn 3 and you are playing extended? Well feel free to take your opponents next turn and set up to remove 25 cards from your deck to create an army of tokens in case you can't kill then with their own deck. Actually, don't mess around with all that! Why not just Mana Severance yourself and shoot the opponent in the nugget with a Goblin Charbelcher? What's that? You are playing Goblins and despise being comboed out? Never fear just cast a couple of seething songs, play a recruiter and a Charbelcher of your own and Combo them out! Wanna play control? No worries! Just cast an Isochron Scepter with a Counterspell imprinted on it for your first turn. When the final spell had been slung the winner was Swede Rickard Österberg, who piloted his "George W Bosh" r/u tinker variant past Frenchman Gabriel Nassif's Mana-Severance-Charbelcher deck in the finals to take the title. The top 8 looked like this- 1. Rickard Osterberg- R/U Tinker/Welder 2. Gabriel Nassif- Charbelcher 3. Yann Hamon- Charbelcher 4. Masashi Oosio- Tinker 5. Hans Joachim Höh- Tinker 6. Eugene Harvey- Tinker 7. Tomohiro Yokosuka- Psychatog 8. Nicolas Labarre- Charbelcher As can be seen if one takes a look at the decklists http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/ptno03/d2decksTop8 A few key cards keep popping up with frightening regularity. Tombs, Monoliths, Tinkers and Keys seem to be the order of the day, whether this core of cards will remain dominant or whether foils can be found in the format remains to be seen, but one thing is certain, it's going to be a fast summer of extended. In addition to the insanity that was the speed of the format, the Pro-Tour also had its share of controversy. With 2 teammates paired against each other in the quarterfinals of a Top 8, playing a mirror match, what does one expect? a) A tough fought match with all the glory on the line under the intense pressure and scrutiny of the Magic world b) A well thought out and intricate match-up between two experienced players who know how to read each other like a book and now have to find an edge Or c) A no-show by one of the players on the basis of the result of a game that was supposedly played out in private and the desire to save a couple of bucks on a plane ticket. What the magic Community received in this case was c), after careful questioning of the Head Judge, Nicolas Labarre, got on a plane and Yann Hamon got a bye into the semifinals. Wizards were obviously not pleased with this result and it is uncertain as to whether we have heard the last of the matter, but rest assured that the very least we can expect are steps from the DCI to ensure that a similar situation never occurs again. States Revisited Queensland has crowned a new State Champion! David Crewe has taken the title running a fairly standard U/W control. Perhaps the biggest thing to come from the State Championships was Paul Farrelly's second place finish with a B/R discard monstrosity, while Megrim put a hurting on any cycling shenanigans, discard spells put a hurting on you for not cycling. Dump your hand fast to keep up in the race and Lavaborn Muse drops the elbow an interesting deck with a good result, other B/R decks also fared well at States worldwide perhaps boding a return for the archetype. The top 8 was comprised of- 3 U/W Control 2 R/W Control 1 Goblin Sligh 1 Zombie 1 B/R Disruption This is how they finished in Perth Patrick Clohessy - Affinity Allen E Kelly - Clerics Sam G Benthien - Goblins Shawn L Rayson - Goblins Jarrod G Bright - Affinity Dong Zhong - UW Control Chris Allen - RW Slide Richard A Edwards - Mesmeric Orb, Brain Freeze, Isochron Scepter craziness Tasmania 1st Michael Otway- Mono-white Control 2nd Ryan Cubit- R/W Slide-rift 3rd-4th Kyle Williams- U/W Control Jason Hicks- R/G 5th-8th Warapot?- U/W Sceptre Raj Kershaw playing U/B Zombie Matty?- Mono-black Zombies Kossman Isaac playing Mono-red Goblins Apologies to the names I missed I couldn't find your names in the DCI Database. Magic Online and Chuck's Virtual Party Ok, Wizards messed up with the release of Version 2.0, they admitted it the servers crashed- a lot. But functionality had been restored and now it was time to celebrate. The party packs were given out and the Pre-Invasion boosters were opened, Morphlings flew out of peoples hands for crazy prices. The marketplace was an absolute buzz with tickets flying left, right and centre as people clambered to pick up old cards or cheap sealed sets to play in the free sealed events that were going to start. Yours truly picked up a Morphling which was destined for the good old prismatic deck, imagine my surprise when the Morphling was UNPLAYABLE in prismatic, the promotional Pre-invasion cards could only be used in "Constructed- Open" casual games. Quite shocked by this I set about selling the Morphling and fear not gentle reader, I did (and for quite a tidy profit too I might add) and consoled myself with the fact that I would be able to play in the sealed events later that night. After watching Australia crush Namibia I sat down to enjoy my Chucks Virtual Party, the queues were up and running and all seemed well. I cracked my packs when the tournament started and there was a jovial feeling in the chat room as people constructed their decks. I started out 3-0 and that is where the madness began, I am playing in my third round up 1-0 in games against "Tengfred" however things are not looking so easy in this game, he has stabilized the board with a Catapault Squad and a bunch of Soldiers including a Noble Templar, a Timberwatch Elf on my side and some large green men mean that he can't effectively attack eventually I draw into a Tephraderm, I misery charm away his Templar and I destroy his board with combat tricks as my men rumble over. Combat damage resolves and when the dust has cleared I am left with about 6 large men and a Timberwatch elf, to a gravel Slinger and a morph. I send the turn over to Tengfred and prepare to go to 4-0 and an I.D into the top 8. All of a sudden I am sideboarding and Magic Online tells me that the game has crashed and the game has ended in a draw! Thankfully Tengfred being the noble character that he is conceded that he had no outs in his deck for the board position that he was in and conceded the next game- a wonderful act of sportsmanship when he could have just ignored the crash, taken the free draw and played on (to top it off Tengfred won out to finish in the Top 8 of the event as well- Congratulations!!! You are a great example to players everywhere). As I sat and waited for the conclusion of the round, I began to get very tired, the round seemed to be taking a while according to the timer the round was finished, yet 2 people were still playing- game 5 of their match! These people had played out their crashed games and the program was giving them the time back for the game after each crash. These people continued to do so for the remaining 2 rounds of this Swiss resulting in a 5 round Swiss that ran for approximately 9 hours. After Id'ing in to top 8 and waiting the excrutiating 3 and a half hours for the last 2 rounds to play out I managed to draft an insane green splash black deck sporting double Timberwatch, lose horribly in the Quarters and go to bed at 4am grumbling about crashed games and mana-flood. No matter, there is always another day! I woke the next day to go into my second Virtual Party and was confronted with no queues and an adept informing me that the Party was over, the Servers were too unstable. A buggy update and too many users has turned Chucks Virtual Party (the party to apologise for the server instability and other assorted problems) into a rerun of "The Little Server that Couldn't". To make matters worse I didn't even get my Akroma Avatar for playing in the first event! In the wash-up it was decided that the Party was over and that people would be compensated with a free Akroma Avatar and 2 Event Tickets. Which is all well and good, especially for those that had no intention of playing in the parties, but a bit of a slap in the face to those that were planning to play in one or more events over the weekend. All that and I'm still waiting for an Akroma Avatar! However there is good news on the horizon as Randy Buhler set aside some of the community's fears as to the future direction and implementation of Magic Online as a product and set out some guidelines for future projects. You can see the statement here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/magiconline/news102903 So now that the bad news is behind us, it's time for some great news as the Online Community gears up for the Mirrodin release into the MTGO world! Release tournaments will be run over 5 consecutive days with players receiving a Bosh Iron Golem avatar for participating and tournaments will be filled by preregistration to ensure server stability. Which bodes well for a highly enjoyable core set release, no doubt online players are looking forward to their first chance to Mindslaver an opponent. Get practicing clicking fast too because Mirrodin is sure to be one of the most time intensive sets online, lots of equipping to do! Trading Online I've been asked to do this to give some newer traders to MTGParadise a quick course in the dos and don'ts of online trading. While there are some obvious obstacles to doing a trade online- (you can't see the cards condition, you have to send the cards to each other rather than just trading on the spot and you have to invest some deal of trust in the other person that they will go through with their part of the bargain), the rewards of trading online are also very great, perhaps the biggest advantage being that you have a much wider market within which to find that special card you need or to trade away something that nobody you play with might want. When you trade at your local card shop you see the same people all the time and with a few slight changes, if you've seen their binder once you've seen it a million times. Online there is a veritable bazaar of cardboard currency and the trading is happening 24 hours a day 7 days a week, while you are at home or school (naughty, naughtyJ ). No matter what your taste in Magic Cards there is a good chance that there will be someone online who can cater to that taste and as long as you have something to offer them there is a good chance you can fulfill whatever needs or wants you may have. Now that we've done the introduction lets get into the nitty-gritty of it all shall we. Listing Basically there are two ways you can go about trading online, you can barter (trade) or you can buy and sell. Mtgparadise has facilities for both in the forums and if you don't want to limit yourself you can do both! The first thing you will need to do is to let people know what you have and what you want for it. If you are trading, the HAVE/WANT forum is the place for you, trading in this forum is as simple as its name suggests. Simply list what you have and list what you want. People will make you offers and you can accept, reject or propose something else by checking out their list. It's that easy! With trading for cash simply list the items you want to sell with a price next to them and people will snap them up or make further offers. If you want to buy, simply do a buy-list with the cards you want with a price you will pay. If you want to sell your cards within a specified time perhaps an AUCTION is the way to go. Note that with an auction you must be very clear that you are in fact running an auction. You MUST be willing to get rid of the card you are auctioning because once somebody wins your auction you will be expected to sell at the winning bid price, the same goes for buying be very sure that you want something because people can get very annoyed if you are retracting auctions or bids. Note that if you definitely want to sell at auction but want a price for your goods, simply state a reserve price. By stating a reserve you are only binding yourself to honour the Auction in the event that a bid is equal to or above the reserve price. By stating a reserve, you protect yourself and if a lower bid later takes your fancy you may be able to negotiate a sale with the bidder once your auction is over if the item goes unsold. Some tips and hints when listing · Be accurate in your description, list what edition the card is from if it is in more than one set · Be sure to include all information about the condition of the card, be honest, people are more willing to trade for a slightly damaged card than they are to accept a damaged card in a trade when they are led to believe it is Mint. · Be realistic, list what you are after but don't expect to get a Black Lotus for your Morgue Toad. If your demands are unreasonable it is unlikely that your trading thread will receive much attention. · State any conditions regarding your trading thread for example, dealing with postage costs, packaging and sending arrangements. Making the trade Next we will move onto the actual trading process. The most important thing to remember here above all else is simple politeness. Yes, a deal that somebody proposes may be ridiculous, but you can tell the person so, in a polite manner that is going to encourage them to want to deal with you further and perhaps arrive at a more agreeable proposition. Also don't be afraid to make a counter offer. Remember to be prompt in your communications, nobody likes to be left waiting for a fortnight to hear the status of their trade for a couple of rares that may be integral to a deck that they are trying to build. Assuming that all goes well pretty soon you should be able to arrive at a deal that is agreeable towards both parties. Be aware that you are not obliged to arrive at a deal with every person that you trade with. Sometimes there just won't be a deal that seems fair to one party and at some stage you may just have to agree to disagree. As long as you remain polite this should not be a problem. Sending off - trust and references Assuming you have managed to come to a deal with someone, the issue will arise as to whom should send their end of the bargain first, basically there are two ways in which this can be decided: 1. One party agrees to send first and then the other party sends upon receipt of the other party's goods; 2. Both parties agree to send simultaneously. The best determinant when deciding who should send first are references from other traders as to the person's reliability. Usually when one party has more references than the other, they will ask the party with fewer references to send first. Where both parties have a reasonable amount of references, both parties will send simultaneously to ensure that the trade is as expedient as possible. Obviously having very few references puts one at a disadvantage when trading, as you are an unknown quantity most people will expect you to send first which obviously puts you in a position where you have to trust the other person. Obviously the position of a person with 3 references is not that far removed from that of a person with no references at all, you may feel uncomfortable sending to that person on their word alone. However the only way to put yourself in a better position is by confirming your honesty and reliability by actually completing some trades. It is therefore a good idea to perhaps seek out some more experienced traders with a lot of references and good trading reputations with whom to establish some deals to build up your own list of people willing to testify as to your trustworthiness. Keep in mind that these deals need not be huge, it is merely the process of sending quickly and honestly by which you will be judged. Once you have established references you will be more able to set some of your own terms as to how a trade is to proceed. It is important to keep in mind that there are some people out there that will try to take advantage of you. Because Mtgparadise is a relatively close community, if somebody is untrustworthy it usually should not take long for this to become common knowledge. Because of the trust and potential expense that you have to put into a trade by sending off first on a persons word alone the golden rule of a trade is- if you check the persons references and are not 100% satisfied that the deal is above board, simply do not do the trade. If somebody has less references than you and still wants to have you send first politely explain to them that they need to prove that they are worthy of this trust before you will send them your goods, if they still maintain and you smell a rat simply walk away from the trade. To summarise, do some trades with established traders to build up your "account" of good references to protect yourself from unscrupulous traders. If you are unsure about somebody's references check the references of the referees, if you are still unsure probably better off safe than sorry. Let the trade go. Getting the good reference Once you have established a deal and who is sending when the key to getting a good reference from that person is speed and safety. Send your cards ASAP at the conclusion of a deal in a proper packaging to ensure that they will arrive in the condition they left in. For my trades I always use toploaders and bubble envelope or cardboard casing and bubble-envelop. How you send is up to you but be sure to take steps to ensure the cards are well protected. Make sure you are sending the right stuff to the right person, this is pretty simple but if you have a few trades going at once try to keep them organized so that you know what is going where. Giving the good reference If you do a trade with someone and it went well hook them up with a reference. This is not only the polite thing to do it also ensures that they are more likely to give you a reference and it builds a stronger trust relationship for future deals. If things go wrong and protecting yourself So what if you do get ripped off? What if your cards don't arrive? Before you go running off to write allegations and brandish a person a ripper be sure to contact them to find out what has happened. Yes, sometimes people forget but it does not mean they are untrustworthy, you may wish to make a note of it in a reference to let a person know that they need to shape up or if a pattern emerges it will warn others as to possible laziness. What if the cards don't turn up at all? If this happens there are generally 2 explanations- 1. The Mail has been lost Or 2. You have been ripped off Generally a good indication of which has happened will be the willingness of the person to communicate. If a person "drops off the face of the earth," or adds you to their block list when you try to contact them about missing cards it is likely that the person has ripped you off. However, if you simply follow the rules of trading with people with good references this is unlikely to happen. If it does happen to you the best thing to do is to contact a moderator, they will guide you through the procedures for leaving negative feedback and for investigating bad trader claims. Situation 2 is more difficult, what do you do when the cards go missing. I have had this occur twice in my time trading on-line, once with goods I was sending and once with goods I was receiving. Unfortunately there is not a lot you can do about this and it sometimes happens, get in contact with the person and try to find out what has happened. If you are unsure that they are telling the truth contact a moderator and they may take the matter further. Although this is a very frustrating situation, keep in mind that it is not just you that is affected by a trade that goes bad due to no fault, the person that sent off their cards in good faith has now sent off their 4 Morphlings or whatever the cards may be and now has a person hounding them for 4 Morphlings that they don't have. Keep in touch with the person, they may be able to do something for you. Don't presume that you have a right to have your cards returned, as a general rule- you don't. It is just one of the risks you must take. Keep in mind that the percentages of trades that this does happen in is probably somewhere in the region of < 2%, if you trade with people with good reputations and take the time to build a good reputation yourself you will find that almost all of your trades run smoothly. If the occasional one doesn't it may just be that it is a write off, a cost of an otherwise enjoyable activity. That being said though if you are dealing in relatively big-bikkies (or what you consider to be big-bikkies) take the time and the few extra dollars to protect your trades with registered post. I recommend registered post with all of my sales, the post office offers insurance up to the value of $100 (you can ensure for more if need be) and the mail will be sent with a number enabling it to be tracked. If you simply have to do a trade and it has to go right, registered post is your answer. Keep in mind that registered post and express post are not one and the same. I have sent an article express post which has gone missing in transit and when using my number to trace the goods have been told by the post office basically "um yeah we lost it, you probably should have used registered post." Another neat way to protect yourself is securetrade, basically securetrade runs like a system of escrow. An independent third party will receive both parties' ends of the bargain and hold them on trust until all parts of the deal have arrived and been verified. Then the third party will send the good on to each person. This is a great way to protect yourself from potential rippers while still being able to make a deal for cards. This is an invaluable tool for newer traders as it allows them to trade on a more equal footing. Check out securetrade at http://www.mtgparadise.com/securetrade.shtml If you want to know even more about online trading check out the forum rules regarding trading on Mtgparadise forums at http://www.mtgparadise.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=552 http://www.mtgparadise.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=2576 http://www.mtgparadise.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=1663 http://www.mtgparadise.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=1694 So there you have it folks a guide to trading online. I will answer any questions regarding this personally at securitron_ch@hotmail.com otherwise feel free to use the normal feedback email address newsletter@mtgparadise.com Thanks for reading, Craig Hong