I was planning on doing a series of Magic 2012 draft articles these past few weeks, but I ended up burning myself out on drafting the Magic 2012 set. I went through a stretch of horrible luck that lasted well over a week, which included me opening very few good cards when drafting, getting either mana screwed or mana flooded in 50%+ of my games, and/or having my opponent draw his bombs right when he needed them and me never getting mine.
Making A Bad Situation Worse
In retrospect I should have quit drafting for a few days, but instead I kept doing one or two drafts every day. This only made it worse because I became even more irritated when things went wrong, thus creating a negative feedback loop. Streaks of bad luck are bound to happen in any game with one or more random elements, so it’s best to be prepared to either weather the storm until it ends, or take frequent breaks and do something else.
Working My Way Back Up
One positive thing that did come out of this ordeal was that I got back into the trading side of Magic Online, which I had been neglecting by doing so many drafts. Before the unlucky streak, I had been able to draft regularly without buying any more event tickets for about a month, since I was doing well in the draft tournaments and doing some trading on the side. Once I finally ran out of event tickets, it became apparent that I needed to stop drafting and start trading again. I had to sell some of my cards and buy a few event tickets so that I would have enough working capital to make some trades. Within a couple of days I was able to make enough trades to get me back up to fifty event tickets, which was quite satisfying.
Constrained By Limitations
Even though I was pleased with my results, I still felt limited by the two big inherent drawbacks of manually trading in Magic Online. The first big limitation is that I am not able to buy or sell in fractions of an event ticket like the bots can, unless I only trade with bots (and even then I’m stuck with credit on the bots unless I’m able to make it equal to a whole ticket). Secondly, I am limited by having to be at my computer to do any trades, which entails a substantial time investment.
The Solution
To overcome these limitations, I decided to set up my own bot. Doing this allows me to make more trades with less time investment. It also lets me be more efficient, because I can still trade on my main account at the same time that I have my bot account running. My bot’s Magic Online username is TheSavvyGamerBot, and barring any power failures/maintenance/Magic Online downtime, it will be online all the time.
Earn A Free Event Ticket
To celebrate the launch of my bot, I will be running a free event ticket promotion for a limited time. To qualify, you must sell at least one event ticket worth of cards to my bot, or buy at least one event ticket worth of cards from my bot. Then all you need to do is fill out the claim form at http://thesavvygamer.com/mtgobotpromo/, and I will add one event ticket worth of credit to your username on my bot.