I know I have been silent after my first two posts, and here’s the obligatory “LOL RL!” explanation.
First of all, I was really bummed about videos. I’m still trying to deliver them, but a lot of shit gets in my way. I promise I’ll return with some videos, one way or another.
Second, school started and mid-september came busy for me, my time being equally split between work and school and social life, the few hours I had at home, I devoted them to pretty much just playing Magic than talking about it. That and the new standard format is pretty awesome, and thus I’ve had little time left to write a coherent post.
I still managed to tune my UB Cloudpost very badly though. I’m not really playing it in queues, because it’s a slow deck, but it’s got wonderful tools and it has a much better Infect and TPPS matchup compared to the UR version and it still rolls over most aggro decks, and some smart people have been working on the list and 4-0ing with it at Dailies. If you like control decks, I suggest you check my thread at the forums.
Today, I want to talk about the general principles of being a MODO grinder.
The topic came up in one of the forum threads and people apparently have grave misconceptions about it. I won’t get into the ethics of grinding a “casual” format, since the Dailies and Queues are there for us to grab. Instead, I want to talk about the mechanics of grinding online and supporting your game habit and for few people I’ve met, your life.
I know most of you won’t turn into grinders overnight or don’t even care for grinding it online. But I think it’s interesting enough, because people really wonder how it’s done on MODO, and aspiring grinders don’t really have a lot of sources (Most of the grinders are too busy actually playing than talking about it).
1. Introduction
Grinding is a different game than playing. It’s all about managing your primary resource (time) most efficiently. This is why you can’t really grind with control decks, because if you have a %100 win percent control deck that takes full 50 minutes to win, you’re still better off with an aggro deck that wins %60 of the time in 5 minutes.
For example, people ask me how I make profitable money in dailies. The truth is, each time you go 3-1 in a daily with a deck like Infect/TPPS, you make 40-60$ per hour, and each time you go 4-0, it’s 75-110$ per hour (I’ll explain the math later). This is because your matches will take 5-7 minutes tops, which leaves you with plenty of time to double queue other dailies / drafts or 2 mans.
This is the basic principle of grinding online – playing multiple games simultaneously, playing a TON of Magic, and not necessarily playing “great” Magic.
2. EV / Costs
What applies to life applies to Magic -it’s less about winning and more about controling your costs.
I never keep decks I don’t play in my binder, I only have cards for TPPS on my account at the moment. Money makes money and each Pyroblast you’re not currently using is 2 tix that are rotting away. If you have a comfortable amount of tix in your account (For me, comfort threshold is around 150 tix -I don’t sell tix below this figure) you can manage to lose a few times in a row, take advantage of some opportunities that you couldn’t forsee (New nix-pax formats, a LCQ tournament, whatever) and so on. You need to keep your money liquid.
For example, the first time I started drafting / playing seriously was Ravnica. I’m really strong in that format. When RGD nix-pax queues were firing, I had around 200 tix left in my account after some sales, and thus I was able to queue for drafts (Something I usually don’t do) because I knew I was probably better than most people just blindly queueing and because of the duals, RGD drafts are extremely profitable. Because I had comfortable amount of tix in my account, I could add RGD drafts to my circuit, temporarily going down to around 120 tix, and then coming back much stronger.
Managing your tix, knowing how much tix to sell, knowing what to invest in are all personal things. Some people I know never go down below 500 tix, others sell down to 30 tix, which is enough for 5 dailies. Bottom line is, have a plan, and stick to it.
3. Time Management
I already told how extremely profitable Dailies can be, if you want to get value out of them. You can make UP TO 110 tix an hour if you 4-0 a Daily. The answer to how is filling in the blanks.
Generally, you want to queue to as many Dailies as you can muster. You want to play “fast” decks. TPPS, Goblins, Infect are good examples in Pauper. RDW, Tempered Steel are some examples in current T2. You want to play fast, concede once the writing’s on the wall and move on to the next window.
See for example, a PTQer learns never to concede, because even the sea might burn. You opponent might make an extremely stupid mistake and you could come out of it. This is a good practice to win matches but not to win lots of pax. If you spend all your time to maximizing your game, your options and such, you will never make a ton of tix.
When I was playing WW, my goal was to get 45 points so I was only playing Dailies, which meants I had a lot of time to ponder on my actions. That month I made 450$. My rating was small 19xx. Next month, I played in half as many dailies because I was busy irl, won only 27 qps, and made 850$. My rating was 1700.
4. Know when to stop
This is easier to practice if you aren’t racing to 45 qps on a short schedule, but it’s still an advice that I give a lot and an advice that NO ONE ever listens to. Once you get into habit of playing 50+ matches a day, most of it starts to come from muscle memory. But Magic is still Magic and you may not realize it once you get into the habit, but mentally, it’s extremely demanding.
It’s no coincidince that I 4-0 more often when I work IRL all week and play just 5-6 dailies during weekdays.
No matter how good you are, you will have times when you’re on fire and you’re literally 4-0ing or 3-1ing every single Daily you enter, and then you’ll have those days when you go 0-2 or 2-2 just about every single Daily. Don’t get over confident once you start to win, and don’t despair once you start to lose. All my friends have gone through the same stuff, and I’ve heard some of the more popular names on leaderboards telling me how they just wanted to 3-1 one more time.
Once you start to despair, stop. Drop from all your games, close Magic, go take a book, go listen to music, watch a movie, and don’t come back before two days.
5. Whims of Fortune
If you want to make Money with Magic, you will play a TON of Magic. I can’t stress the amount. 50+ matches a day means on average 125 games. That’s about 4000 games a month. Once you start seeing all that many games, you’ll start to see weirdest shit happen.
You WILL mulligan down to 3 cards because you don’t see a single land in your 27 lands deck.
You WILL mulligan down to 3 cards because you only draw lands in your 12 lands deck.
You WILL have 3 land, 4 nonland hands and draw only lands.
You opponent WILL topdeck the best answer he needs.
These things WILL happen. They’re not very likely to happen, they won’t happen enough, but if you play enough of Magic, you will see them. You must learn to shrug them off. If you can’t, it’s probably because you’re stressed and tired -see above, just stop playing. I ASSURE YOU THEY WILL HAPPEN.
That’s why I always scold when my friends come to me “FffFFfFFUUUUUuUU HE JUST DREW IT”. Learn to “LOL” at your misfortune. You’re playing a Card Game, bro. You have to be able to handle the whims of fortune. It doesn’t matter if you lose the fight today -you’re fighting the big battle, never forget that.
6. Social Conduct
Be ready for hate. No one likes seeing your avatar the third time in a row in 2 man queues and losing to you the third time in a row. No one likes to play against Fast Combo / Fast Aggro. They will call you a lucker, they will call you a bastard, and once I had someone report me to ORCs because there was no way I was this “lucky” and so I must’ve been cheating.
You can’t let people get you. Be courteous whenever you can, never respond to your haters, and move on to your next game. Block annoying people frequently. If people say “Hello and Good Luck” I just type “ty” -after all, I honestly don’t wish my opponent “good luck” but I acknowledge that they’re being friendly. If people talk to you after you win, in a non-whiny way, talking about choices they made that costed them the game, chat with them. Most of my “friends” I’ve met on MODO, I’ve met them on queues facing each other.
NEVER “GG” IF YOU’RE THE ONE WHO’S WINNING. It’s extremely fraustrating to the loser and it’s condesscending. If they gg you, respond in kind.
Never be an ass, never give people to be an ass, never bother with people enough to cause trouble that they might end up going to ORCs. I really have no time for these, and neither should you. Block annoying people, respond people briefly but courteous enough, and move on.
Also understand that you give people every single reason to hate you. I play TPPS. It’s not a fair deck. I win a lot with it. My winnings come from people who usually spend money to play. One time, I played against the same guy 3 times in a row in 2 man queues and apparently, the guy had bought only 6 tix and now he couldn’t play. I understand that that guy has every reason to hate me. Don’t be heartless -you were once there too. Just try to be polite, if you can’t, block them and move on but never hate them. Odds are, you’re winning overall so someone’s gotta be losing. It’s easy to be a winner but it’s hard to be a loser, so try to see from their point of view.
7. EV Ratios
Last and honestly, the least, are the EV ratios.
Most of the money you make from Magic comes from 1. Playing (and thus winning) a lot and 2. Spending nothing.
With these, you can make a simple EV chart:
Constructed Dailies > Gold Queues > Regular Queues > Sealed Dailies > Drafts > Release Events > Prerelease Events
The simple math for Queues is that, 3 loses cost you 6 tix, and you win these back in 4 matches. Thus, 5-3 is enough to keep making profit. Thus you need to keep a win ratio above %62 to keep making profit. Gold Queues are the same but only, if you win, you win 5 times more, and if you lose, you lose 5 times more. If you want to do queues, I suggest you have at least enough tix to do 20 matches in a row. That means 40 tix for Regular Queues and 200 tix for Gold Queues.
Don’t draft M12. Rares / Mythics don’t sell for anything and you need to split once for every two times you don’t do anything. 4322′ing it is terrible anyway because while you’re minimizing the cost, you’re really not profitting anything. Most of the shit doesn’t sell for anything and unless you win a 4322, you end up losing money. Swiss Drafts are a complete waste of time.
Never do Prerelease / Release events for value, unless your name is aaronbrieder. If you need to get practiced with the format, etc, then by all means do them, but know that I’ve had a ton of friends lose over 200-300 tix when M12 came out because they didn’t listen to me when I said “Don’t do this shit!”.
8. Conclusion
MODO Grinding is unlike any other Magic you’ve ever played. It’s played for value, it’s played fast, it’s a blurry vision of cards that are tapped so fast you don’t realize what’s happening. If you are serious about it, this is but a glimpse -I urge you to come talk to me whenever I’m online if you need tips or help getting started, but I may not always respond right away because when I’m online on MODO, I’m usually playing, multiples games even (heh).
I hope you enjoyed this brief view of an online grinder.
Nighthavk
Nighthavk_ on MODO
kedi98ATgmailDOTcom
http://twitter.com/DKSakar
Very interesting read. However is there a place for people who are in-between casual and grinder? Someone like myself who is interested in playing the queues to win, but doesn’t have the time to really “grind” out games?
@Shinob1: Of course man. (: The one issue is, non-gold queues are actually terrible EV outside of the scheme I’ve outlined unless you’re playing in and out heavily. As a “part-time job”, they’re one of the fun most things you can do, but as far as general Magic experience is concerned, they are not, if you know what I mean.
Dailies are really lucrative and for decks like Infect, TPPS and Goblins are really fast. The entire thing takes a little more than 3 hours maybe and you only actually play about 20-30 minutes. When I’m spending time with family, I’ll sometimes join a DE, take a 5-10 minute away to play out my match and then get back to the loving embrace of my family, etc.
But either way, you can just choose your own Magic experience. For me, I like being kept busy. Being able to turn my “hobby” into a lucrative passtime is fantastic for me.
With only a handful of DE’s for Pauper for the day, do you cruise the 2-mans in-between DE’s, or do you play multiple formats? What I’m looking to do is be able to pop on for an hour or two a day during the week to grind out some matches and use Pauper to create a bankroll for other formats. I know the EV on 2-mans isn’t good, but I’ve also read that the competition is a bit weaker when compared to DE’s, which might be better for someone like myself just starting out.
Overall the 2-man queues fit my schedule better, but I don’t want to throw money at a them if I cannot reasonably expect to break even or make a ticket or two; I might as well spend that money on cards I want to buy.
@Shinob1: ATM I’m playing Standard and Pauper, though I’ve been doing prerelease events despite being negative ev, to get used to the cards and o build common/uncommon/rare fodders. Usually when I’m doing a DE, I always follow the end of a match with a queue. Sometimes I’ll just queue, but honestly, you’ll make like 5-6 tix a day if you play queues for an hour and do not double queue (which is what I do when there are no dailies to attend.) All in all, it’s a nice way to supplament your income with DEs and you can make a ton (competition is indeed much easier most of the time) but I can see how it’d bore the hell out of just about anyone (myself included even if I do do it)
I’m really curious about the decks you decide to use and how you metagame. In pauper, do you switch decks if you feel like the metagame is changing, or do you just tend to stick with what you think will have the highest EV over the course of many games. I’ve read, for example, that TPPS in pauper, when played by an expert, will win a large percentage of the time against just about any deck when played correctly.
How about Standard. Obviously a deck like RDW is one of the fastest to play, and has reasonable game, but when there is lot’s of hate for it like it seems there is no way it can’t be very profitable can it? Have you had much luck with tempered steel?
Also, I mostly play WW in pauper…do you think it is possible with WW to have enough hate to consistently beat the two most “unfair” decks… TPPS and/or infect, or is that just not going to happen?
@Asabmow: I usually play TPPS and tend to stick to my guns. Like you said, it’s a very powerful deck that rewards familiarity and discipline so good. You “can” metagame, but to be honest, deck familiarity will win out over metagaming in eternal formats in my opinion. Besides, you can always “switch” to WW for example, because Infect is getting large, but you might just still play against TPPS four times in a row. That’s how it is with eternal formats. I play TPPS and don’t really plan on changing my deck anytime soon.
I used to play the old Steel and really used to like it. It survived the rotation rather well in my opinion and like RDW it can still just randomly win. And to be honest it’s really difficult to hate out RDW completely in current Standard, because its 4 mana finishers and shrine are insanely powerful.
WW can be tuned to beat Infect and even TPPS but you’ll definitely lose out your edge against Mirror, MBC, Cloud, Affinity… etc. You get the picture. The reason current lists always have a problem with TPPS and to an extend Infect is not because WW can’t handle those decks, but most WW pilots (wisely too imo) choose to ignore those decks and focus on beating everything else.
So if you win packs do you sell them immediately or do you use those packs to re-enter other formats?
You almost always sell boosters unless you plan to draft and in that case you keep them for drafts.
@Nightvhawk: Thanks for this, interesting stuff. You mentioned that a Daily is worth ~$100 if you 4-0, but of course, you don’t always 4-0. What do you think your true hourly rate is grinding online?
Nice article, a very different look on the game.
I always wondered about this stuff actually.
I think I ll never be a grinder, I can’t play lots of games at once, I berely have time to play 1. =)
I am happy with my results tho, I don’t play much but I think I ll build my std deck eventually out of my pauper deck.
Great article, Nighthavk. I’ve been trying to find a starting point for grinding MTGO, thanks a bunch. Out of curiosity, since you mentioned that you also play Standard in an above comment, what deck do you play for that format?
Yes, it was a good article. I only have one problem. You said, “The truth is, each time you go 3-1 in a daily with a deck like Infect/TPPS, you make 40-60$ per hour, and each time you go 4-0, it’s 75-110$ per hour (I’ll explain the math later).” And you never did the math later. I’m assuming you’re basing it on a 5 min game, 3 games per match, 4 rounds. If this is correct, you’re saying that it only takes 1hr to do a Daily Event. This is of course misleading, because you will have to sit there for the entire event. Granted, you can be doing other things in the downtime, but you’re still sitting there. Anyway, If you 4-0 then you’re winning 11 packs at $4.00 a pack (good luck if you can actually sell them for that) so that’s $44 minus $6 entry fee, for a total of $38 an hour. If you 3-1 then you’re winning 6 packs, which is $24 minus $6 entry fee, for a total of $18 per hour. Of course, if you 2-2, 1-3, or 0-2 (in which case you’d drop after losing the first two rounds) you’re losing $6 (plus your time). So let’s say if you 4-0 you’re making $38 per hour, if you 3-1 you’re making $18 per hour, and if you do worse you’re losing $6. Assuming you’re running a 50% win rate, and your results are evenly distributed, you’re actually making $7.6 per hour of actual net profit. That’s waaaay off you’re qouted number. If you win instead 65% of your matches, which is actually really good considering you’re speeding through them, you still only bump up your winnings to about $9 per hour. I’m not trying to be a !@!@ but am genuinely curious as to how you came up with your figures.
I also wanted to comment about drafting. The key is to find a format with a high EV for the packs and become as good as you can at that format, rather than drafting a format with which you are comfortable but has a low EV. When grinding at drafting, there is also some amount of rare drafting that comes into play. Basically, you’re picking any rare greater than $4.00 (the price of a pack) whenever you see it, no matter what. You’re also picking up rares with any amount of value higher than lots of cards that could help your deck. I’ve been able to maintain my draft record at about 65%, which means my EV each time I draft is about two packs. My cost of drafting is $14 so on the face I’m losing 6$ each time I draft. However, the cards you keep make up the difference. Because I’m “rare drafting” while others are ignoring rares to a certain extent to build a better deck, the cards I open have a higher than random EV, which means I’m opening about $5 of cards per pack. This equals $15 total dollars for each draft. In total, you can profit $9 per draft. Of course, a draft takes longer than an hour, even if you speed through your matches. So you’re maybe making $5-6 per hour. That’s okay-minimum wage. This is how I got so many commons and started in Pauper bc I couldn’t sell them for sufficient value to be worth my time lol. I’d draft, then get the commons, then use them to enter dailies. It’s been a while since I’ve done that though.
[...] this deck and came across the major pauper site PDC. On there I read a number of articles and found one about grinding. While, I don’t know if it will be for me, I kind of want to try it out. I had always heard [...]
Just stumbled on this article as a magic/pauper guy. Loved your TPPS primer at mtgsalvation.
If you still check this site, did you ever grind online poker back before the DOJ shut down the big sites? You talk about grinding MTGO in much the same way and clearly understand the principles behind variance and EV in a card game.
I’m curious because there’s a decent amount of crossover between the two worlds. I used to grind poker with a decent amount of success, and I’m considering getting into the grind of MTGO. I’m definitely spoiled by all the nice features made specifically for grinders at poker sites, though (like the ability to tile all your games into little windows next to one another… I doubt I could handle ten MTGO games at once like I did with poker), but I played MTG for fun as a kid and it might be nice to have another hobby that pays for itself (and then some, perhaps).
I got into online poker the same way you got into MTG. Honestly, the easy money is there, just waiting to be grabbed. People know the system is rigged and play to lose. Lots of small fish the munch on, such way that you’d surely think people aren’t THIS much of a fool, but they are.
I was making 1k$+ consistently on a monthly basis. Shit just wasn’t even normal. If I didn’t like wasting any more than I did winning, I would’ve made a killing. Still sometimes think about picking it up again as a real job. I hope this answers your comment.