Academy Announcement: Tutorial Updates This Week

Dear MTGO fans,

We’ve been exploring the website over the past few weeks for pages that are accumulating cobwebs in order that we may clean them out and add new content; so this week, MTGO Academy will be updating, and adding to, our growing collection of MTGO interface and beginner tutorials! Our tutorial section features videos and articles aimed at helping users of all skill levels (from Magic beginners to MTGO experts) improve their Magic Online experience. Check it out! If there’s something that you were wondering about but which isn’t listed, please let us know in the comment section below.

Our first update, Plejades’ article “In the Beginning: Oh, So Many Choices”, is already live! This article now features updated decklists (using the 2012 Planeswalker Pack), courtesy of the MTGO Academy staff, for usage in the New Players room, as well as a few minor updates to address changes in the MTGO client implemented since the article was first published.

In addition to the above update, we are also in the process of remaking all of our tutorial videos! Our new videos will feature a more in-depth look at the features of Magic Online, as well as clearer audio. Expect the video section to expand and feature many new tutorials on the ins and outs of the MTGO client (as well as a special guest on audio)!

Lastly, new text-based tutorials are in the editing process in order to introduce newer players to the world of Magic: The Gathering and its online version! This massive, four-part series will examine the following main topics:

• Paper Magic, and the relevant paper Magic info that online players should follow.
• Becoming acclimated and using the Magic Online interface (separated into a look at the Terms of Service and Code of Conduct; navigating the trading, playing, and other areas of the client; as well as a focus on some features that are often overlooked by those with low-to-moderate experience with the client).
• Resources to cater to Magic Online-specific users (unique online products, unique events, and online-specific strategy sites).
• An introduction to trading, buying, and selling online, as well as helpful hints to make the process as smooth as possible (including a walk-through of the Collection Tab, a walk-through of the Trade Interface, a discussion on bot and human traders, and some suggestions to make using the Classifieds section much easier and more productive).

The below is one example of many helpful hints from the guide: directed searching of the Classifieds!

The Classifieds area of Magic Online is known for being cluttered with ads that are of no relevance or contain misinformation. How often do you search for a popular bot chain, only to be bombarded by MTGO‘s equivalent of trade spam? You needn’t filter through the filth any longer! Here’s a simple hint to direct your searches past all of that annoying clutter: When you are looking to trade with a particular bot chain, look how they structure their ads and alter your search to take into account their (often) unique formatting! For example, if you type in “Academy” in the hopes of trading with one of MTGO Academy’s bots, you might see a result like this:

Click the picture to expand it.

But if you type “Academy_”, you will filter out most of the noise!

This also works with most of the bigger bot chains, such as CardBot sellbots! Look at what a search for “cardbot” turns up:

Now let’s add a bit of formatting (“cardbot-”), and you will still probably get some clutter:

But if you take into account that all the chat symbols in Magic Online start with a bracket, you can weed out almost all of the impersonators! These are the results for searching “cardbot- [” (where the left bracket is the beginning of the green or red mana symbol):

We hope that these projects will have something to offer players of all skill levels. If you have any comments, questions or requests, please feel free to leave them below!

Cheers,
MTGO Academy Staff