- Teia Rabishu
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Member for 13 years, 7 months, and 2 days
Last active Tue, Oct, 4 2022 13:53:22
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May 31, 2019Teia Rabishu posted a message on The End of an EraThere's nothing MTGS has that anyone like SCG would want. And there's already TCGPlayer integration in the site but it's just not enough. The fact of the matter is that without additional revenue streams, the model doesn't work, and additional revenue streams were considered and rejected by Curse. Maybe the new site will be better in this regard, or at least have less overhead than a company like Curse brings.Posted in: Articles
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May 31, 2019Teia Rabishu posted a message on The End of an EraPosted in: Articleshell R_E hasn't even been active in 2 years
He left the site after a scandal where he canceled a whole bunch of orders for Pearl Lake Ancient after it spiked from like $1 to like $5. It's also why Rai Kerensky took over the Running Tally from him. -
May 29, 2019Teia Rabishu posted a message on The End of an EraFor the entirety of the network, plus other operating costs like Curse employee salaries and the like? It adds up really quickly.Posted in: Articles
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May 29, 2019Teia Rabishu posted a message on The End of an EraPosted in: ArticlesQuote from Timba »sites like this should be profitable
MTGS' monetization is largely an older model based on ads. Other revenue streams were considered but rejected, and when you factor in server costs and other operating costs for a forum this size, you're looking at probably about five digits a month. But it's not really as simple as being big. Money has to come from somewhere, and banner ads just don't pay the bills anymore.
if they lose money on it, they should sell it
Amazon sold Curse to Fandom, and as an accountant and longtime Magic market analyst (including analyzing businesses that have Magic-based operations), my suspicion is Fandom is getting a nice little tax writeoff or other loss carryover as a result of it. -
Jul 22, 2018Teia Rabishu posted a message on Magic Market Index for July 20th, 2018This feels like one of those updates that loses sight of the forest for the trees. Serious, statistics-oriented collectors and traders aren't coming to MTGS no matter how good the MMI gets because, fundamentally, there are other sites that provide better financial metrics. When Rai Kerensky and I brought the Magic Market Index to the front page, it was always meant to be a quick, at-a-glance price list and advice going into the weekend for the "FNM to PPTQ" crowd. Every other writer for it, including myself, has stuck to that philosophy. Things like deviations that are more than twice that of what they're referencing just aren't helpful, and sticking aggregate stats first actually makes it more difficult to get that at-a-glance information that's relevant to the MMI's target demographic. If anything, the set overview should be placed below the major movers, highest-value cards, and expandable card list. That way, the most relevant information is placed first, and information that only matters to a tiny niche of readers doesn't get in the way of it.Posted in: Articles
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Jul 9, 2018Teia Rabishu posted a message on Magic Market Index for July 6th, 2018I must say I'm a bit dismayed to see the Magic Market Index move to a biweekly format. This reduces the overall helpfulness of tracking price trends because it means readers have access to fewer data points in a timely manner. For traders, this makes the Magic Market Index all but useless except for brief moments in time, and for collectors, it means that more robust price tracking such as that afforded by MTG Goldfish is a superior option to check prices. All they're missing is commentary provided without advice, as seems to be the current format, and that's only going to cause a slip in readership.Posted in: Articles
As the Magic Market Index was always and as far as I'm concerned will always be a collaborative effort, my suggestion is that you would do well to seek out someone with skill in financial analysis (someone with a finance or accounting degree, perhaps) to ensure that more regular updates can be provided to this series, and that proper advice can be given to readers in order to draw them away from the more technically robust price tracking tools available. -
May 4, 2018Teia Rabishu posted a message on Magic Market Index for May 3rd, 2018Just as an FYI, the excerpt shows up, at least for me, as:Posted in: Articles
<p>The <em>Magic Market Index</em> is a weekly article series that documents the prices of all new released expansions throughout their life in Standard. The <em>Magic Market Index</em> is designed to give you easy access to current pricing and trends, with minor commentary that helps single out the significant changes you need to be aware of.</p> -
Apr 14, 2018Teia Rabishu posted a message on Magic Market Index: Inventions BuyoutWhile I appreciate this new direction you seem to be taking the MMI in, I think you have an index and commentary format confused with an informational editorial. In the future, I advise you keep regular features to their core concepts, and have ancillary content on its own, as the average MMI reader doesn't come here to read about buyout information they already know. You're speaking to a crowd that doesn't exist, and as an editor with many years' experience, I must voice my confusion as to how this got past this editing process. If requested, I could even have produced a much more in depth, detailed analysis of the Magic market and the conditions leading to buyouts as a special issue of the Magic Street Journal.Posted in: Articles
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Dec 2, 2017Teia Rabishu posted a message on If You Can't Take Criticism of Jeremy Hambly, You're Part of the ProblemPosted in: ArticlesQuote from Onering »Freedom of speech does not mean you get to say whatever you want without backlash.
Put another way, if someone exercises their freedom of speech to say bad things about another person, then that doesn't eliminate other people's freedom of speech to say bad things about that person.
That's the thing about rights. Everyone has them, even when you might not personally like it. -
Dec 1, 2017Teia Rabishu posted a message on If You Can't Take Criticism of Jeremy Hambly, You're Part of the ProblemPosted in: ArticlesQuote from Negator_402 »Lack of evidence does not shift the burden to the accused; it wipes out the charge in the first place.
This is exactly what abusers bank on in order to get away with their behaviour. -
Dec 1, 2017Teia Rabishu posted a message on If You Can't Take Criticism of Jeremy Hambly, You're Part of the ProblemTo quote the right honourable Jean Chretien, "A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven."Posted in: Articles
The article belittles people constantly moving the goalposts and asking for ever more "proof" when proof has already been provided, not the idea of asking for proof itself. And, of course, sometimes you just have to take abuse victims at their word, because in a lot of cases (such as with the dishonourable Roy Moore), there simply isn't much to work with unless the abuser incriminates themself. -
Nov 30, 2017Teia Rabishu posted a message on If You Can't Take Criticism of Jeremy Hambly, You're Part of the ProblemIf you wish all your posts to be removed from MTGSalvation, please contact our technical administrator Feyd_Ruin. He can help facilitate your request.Posted in: Articles
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Apr 23, 2017Teia Rabishu posted a message on The Magic Market Index Amonkhet Set ReviewPosted in: ArticlesQuote from Mergatroid_Jones »It's like people don't even know that Anointed Procession will be eight bucks in five years. How is it this kind of card always follows this pattern?
It's ultimately a supply thing. When it's bulk, it just kind of gets tossed to the wayside by most players, and thus never really enters circulation into the market (if ten thousand casual players all open a copy each, those ten thousand copies won't amount to anything if they're never sold or traded away, after all). Then after years and years go by andGhaveEDH players need to get their token copying fix, they find that there are fewer copies out there than you'd have thought given the massive print runs modern sets have. And sometimes these shortages are forced by profiteers who buy up every copy they can find on the cheap and jack the price up by sheer availability drought. You need that time factor before things can really get silly, price-wise, though.
The real question is how many sets we can go through before this pattern stops holding up due to any number of economic factors. Just because Parallel Lives is worth a lot doesn't mean Anointed Procession will necessarily hold up if the state of Magic is rather different in five years. -
Feb 3, 2017Teia Rabishu posted a message on The Magic Market Index for January 27, 2017It was a case of multiple people who normally work on the MMI (myself included) all managing to have real-life issues popping up at the same time.Posted in: Articles
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Jan 13, 2017Teia Rabishu posted a message on The Magic Market Index for January 13, 2017Posted in: ArticlesQuote from KandykidZero »Fumarole also combos with Crackdown Construct for infinite triggers.
While I did some research to try to get a sense of how people were trying to solve the new metagame, I can certainly miss things. That sort of combo would definitely explain the spike in price Fumarole's seeing more cleanly than it complementing Saheeli Rai. I'll keep that combo on my radar as far as tracking Fumarole's price is concerned. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Goods have:
A corporation will never have your best interests at heart. If they feel they can squeeze an extra dollar out of you, they'll go for it. Wizards is nobody's friend but their shareholders', and greed is their singular motivator. It's all they're legally allowed to be motivated by. That's not "good" behaviour by any stretch of the imagination.
You realize you're talking to the Magic version of Jim Sterling, right?
There isn't any, because America is a capitalist economy and under capitalism, corporations like Hasbro are only allowed to do one thing: Maximize shareholder value. If an executive takes steps that the board believes do not serve this goal, the executive will be replaced by someone who does. And, of course, actually maximizing shareholder value (instead of merely increasing it) means doing some pretty dirty things to make sure you aren't leaving even a single dollar on the table.
Combine that with how many executives get bonuses tied to quarterly or yearly performance, and you have the makings of a system where exploitation is not only the default mode of economic transaction, but the only one. So Wizards feels like they can get away with Masters-level pricing here, and they're doing it. In a few years, if Magic lives that long, they'll try that again, except the packs will be more than $10. They might even be $15. And executives will keep on pushing that envelope farther and farther, with more supplementary sets and more pointless add-ons like Masterpieces and alternate art Japanese cards, trying to get those bonuses, trying to maximize the profits from each new release, with no regard for Magic's long-term health other than to shrug their shoulders and blame the consumer if it all comes crashing down.
You see it in most industries, and the fundamental problem is capitalism. It's not limited to Hasbro or to Magic in any significant way. They're a symptom, not the problem.
their potential future cash cowNicol Bolas.For something called "war of the spark" it was certainly pretty bloodless among the named cast. Then again the recaps I've been reading are like... they better do something good with Liliana is all I'm saying, because that "surprise yoink I'm basically an oldwalker again" was the most interesting thing to come of the story.
The Ring cycle is six books in three volumes, plus all the supplementary material like The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and various other books like The Children of Hurin.
But you want to know the main difference between an actually good story like Lord of the Rings and a hack story like Magic? I'll boil it down to a simple microcosm: The orcs. Tolkien, being a devout Catholic, actually worked various themes he believed in into the work. Such as the fact that evil cannot create, but only corrupt. Hence why orcs aren't their own race, but elves that have been corrupted to evil. And yet he still struggled with the idea of a race that's intrinsically, purely evil. His faith led him to dislike the idea that a people could be beyond redemption. While he never really solved that moral dilemma while he was alive (though he did posit that Mordor would've had huge farms and other industry offscreen, implying civilians existed), the fact that there was a clear theme the author actually believed in means that you can tell the work actually has weight to it.
Compare that to the Eternals. Oh look they just have to touch a planeswalker to de-spark them and also they're only as strong as the plot demands. Their defeat doesn't even have any real weight to it because there's no thematic culmination to anything (compare to the Witch-King dying in Lord of the Rings). And the corrupted Amonkhet gods? Well, in the Ring cycle, the Nazgul were once great kings but have been so thoroughly corrupted by evil that they're indistinguishable by now, having lost their humanity through their greed. It's an actual literary theme, unlike "here, evil zombie gods, look isn't that cool?"
Fundamentally, the problem is that Wizards does not want Magic to be a story. This seems counter-intuitive, but look at how they market things. They market plot points, they put watermarks on cards that represent key moments in the plot, but they spend almost no time on character or theme. They want epic moments, but not the slow buildup that makes them have impact. It's a very "have your cake and eat it too" approach to storytelling, and it leads to things like them thinking Nicol Bolas is Ozymandias when really he's Snidely Whiplash.
Remember, the reason I'm comparing everything to Tolkien is because Western fantasy literature almost invariably traces itself back to one of two sources: J.R.R. Tolkien or Robert E. Howard. And Magic is much more in the vein of Lord of the Rings than it is Conan the Barbarian.
Well, not necessarily, because that's how you get
Nicol BolasThanos going "time to take action" then a ton of movies later he's still doing nothing.Compare this to actually good writing, such as Lord of the Rings. Sure, Ungoliant is still kicking around somewhere because they never actually confirmed she died. Morgoth will return in Middle-Earth: Ragnarok. The blue wizards are still probably ******* around wherever they went. But Tolkien don't make you feel like you got left hanging. There's no "... and then what?" to those stories because Tolkien knew how to make a decent story. With Magic, there's always a tease of a story to come, but it's obviously written in a "well you'll get something, maybe, if corporate allows it, but we don't know what it looks like yet."
What you're missing here is that introducing new threats without having dealt with the old ones first only works if the story is paced and planned well and Magic's storyline is anything but paced and planned well. Though I will agree that the utter failure of Nicol Bolas to be an engaging, effective, or even interesting villain isn't as bad as the blatant "we want our own Avengers team because that's popular now!" marketing the Gatewatch gets.
Introducing the Phyrexians and the ELdrazi and all that other stuff while Nicol Bolas was supposed to be the main villain is the exact kind of bad storytelling you're talking about. There are so many plot threads strewn about because they want to be able to milk a storyline as long as they can (otherwise Nicol Bolas' storyline would've been wrapped up years ago) and that means you've got all kinds of stuff on the "maybe we'll come back to this some day between original worlds" docket. Subject, of course, to the whims of executives who base story directives on sales, not anything to do with story. If good storytelling brushes up against the need to hit a sales target, Hasbro is going to ensure the sales target wins every time.
Yawgmoth is a hell of a lot better of a villain than Nicol Bolas is ever capable of being, and that guy could kill oldwalkers just by touching them. The story showed the actual gravitas of the Phyrexian threat and built them up as credible villains, not a moustache-twirling "literally no matter how this goes, it's all a part of my plan you'll never learn" cardboard cutout. And as a result, Apocalypse felt way heavier than War of the Spark.
It has and it hasn't. The original mono red deck in this vein was Sligh, played by Paul Sligh, and it was a janky mess due to the deckbuilding restrictions at the time but it pioneered the concept of the mana curve. Fast forward to the original Mirrodin era and that's when you have the first modern-ish incarnation of "Red Deck Wins" where the deck has so many avenues to bypass defenses (blocking, counters due to activated abilities, etc) that the red deck "just wins." Notably the difference between Sligh and RDW is that Sligh wants to burn away potential blockers and RDW tends to place less emphasis on preserving its board.
Then you have variants like Big Red (which has been a thing since forever because Mana Flare + Fireball was tech in the early to mid 90s), Ponza (red control), Goblins, and of course, Burn. The main addition Burn brings to the table is the sheer amount of redundancy it has, substituting threat quality (each individual Bolt only ever deals 3 damage) for threat density (you've got a lot more Bolts than they have business spells).
Burn, traditionally, is actually highly skill intensive and only gets even more skill intensive after sideboarding, so it sounds like Arena's BO1 is the problem rather than red per se. This could just as well be white weenie or green stompy and the problem would be the same.
Battle for Zendikar release date, where the Gatewatch became an official thing: October 2, 2015
We know that Magic set design is about a 2-3 year process. If anyone seriously thinks that the Gatewatch wasn't an attempt to cash in on the superhero franchise, well, there's not much else that can be said.
So the story has zero stakes. Because while we've seen a few planeswalkers die here and there, the mere existence of those kinds of temporal shenanigans leads to the "why wouldn't Ugin/Sorin/Nahiri just kill the Eldrazi?" kind of scenario where even if there's an in-story reason for it (in the Eldrazi case, Ugin wasn't sure what the ramifications would be on the multiverse if they died, which was promptly forgotten when two of them got Channel Fireball'd), that reason will never not come across as a hackneyed contrivance because characters should never have the tools to invalidate the plot to begin with.
Lazy writing meets plot contrivances might be the direction the story's taken since the Mending but it's still not good writing by any stretch of the imagination. Hell they've even straight-up killed Nicol Bolas before so him dying here wouldn't even have any impact because players would just go "okay now how'd be survive another death?"
But when you want the story to be less "who cares about the plot? You're here to turn off your brain and watch superheroes fight supervillains and you aren't interested in anything else" and Wizards thinks that's a good approach to take, well, that's when you start developing opinions.
Frankly I'm surprised that counterfeits aren't a bigger issue than they currently are with how hard Wizards is cutting corners.
You'd think they would have learned their lesson after Kess, Dissident Mage was soft-banned from tournament play in Legacy because of how warped the foils were for an all-foil printing. It was basically "find a judge willing to create a proxy for you or don't play her" because the card was considered marked by default.
Oh and to the people talking about the insanity defense, that defense is almost never even attempted, and when it is, it has a vanishingly low success rate (plus you're still involuntarily confined if it succeeds). Even if this story is true, the insanity defense would not work for what seems more like aggravated assault.
That's a problem corporate media has in general. You get so afraid of alienating literally any group that you become unwilling to take any kind of artistic stand. You wind up becoming less focused on the "telling a story" aspect of it because you care more about the "create [inoffensive] entertainment" aspect of it. But you run into problems like the inability for your heroes to stand for anything other than a vague "heroism" or like the inability for your villains to do anything truly evil because the villainy must be kept to things that exist only in fiction (evil businesspeople, for instance, would look more like a Captain Planet villain than the CEO of a real oil company). You wind up trying to please everyone, only to be confused when you discover that being a milquetoast means you're more likely to piss people off—you can't go far enough in any one direction to please any but the most easily entertained before you're forced to double back. You wind up eschewing greatness and embracing mediocrity because you don't understand that merely casting the bigger net to keep people around until they get bored isn't going to be better if a smaller net would establish a loyal core audience that stays with you through thick and thin.
Think about it like this: When we study literature, we study the ones that actually have a point to make. Even something like Lord of the Rings manages to have opinions on things ranging from theology (evil cannot create and can only corrupt, hence why Sauron has to turn elves into orcs) to environmentalism (the ents and Isengard). That's the kind of thing you won't really see out of a corporate entity unless it's something very few people would disagree with and, as above, unless it's presented in as general a way possible so readers can project their values onto it. "And do the wizards really have to be angels? That might not play so well in foreign markets. Maybe they should just be special in some nondenominational way." Same thing with Bolas. He's a moustache-twirler because anything that might map onto real life is too "risky" for Wizards to attempt.
It's a problem that won't be solved unless Hasbro ever lets Wizards' creative team loose without corporate "risk management" restrictions, but that has about as much chance of happening as Mana Drain in Standard. Until then, grasping mediocrity will remain the "better" business choice than taking a risk to achieve greatness.