Jon Agley: His Values Are Off

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23602_Grinding_A_Question_Of_Values.html

There's so much wrong with this that I don't even know where to start.  I would totally normally make this a blog post, but I just can't be bothered so I'll make a long comment here.
1)  The article you mentioned was published on THIS SITE (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23253_The_Problem_With_Planeswalker_Points.html), the fact that you couldn't even do the most basic of research for this piece is pretty telling (and indicative of the overall quality (which is, unsurprisingly, lacking).
2)  Don't act like you're not judging, it's 100% clear that you are and trying to fall back on "The purpose of this article is not to pass judgment on specific valuations of the Pro Tour" is cowardly (but you're very skilled at cowardly, as we'll cover in future points).
3)  I really enjoyed how you tried to act very intellectual in your analysis of PWPs and valuations, but completely failed in doing so.
4)  "Isn't it terrible that these players had to take these extreme actions to grind PWP?":  No one ever said it was the system's fault that people did this.  What Kibler was pointing out was the system rewarded things it shouldn't and that people, even if they were dumb enough to do objectively stupid actions, should not be rewarded for doing so.
5)  Name names.  There are only TWO pieces that can maybe be described as "tell-all":  Carrie Oliver's (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/feature-article-on-the-grind/) and mine (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/chrismascioli-chasing-kate-why-and-how-i-qualified-for-pro-tour-dark-ascension/) and not listing them is a great injustice if you want to discuss them.  I was 100% open in my article, the least you could do is be a bit more open about your intentions here (which were to judge me).
6)  Your contentions are just wrong:  "100 people who were willing to do the most to secure an invitation (i.e., ostensibly, those who valued a Pro Tour invitation the most as evidenced through their quantifiable actions)"
a)  This is just untrue, it wasn't the 100 people who were willing to do the most, but the 100 people who were in the best position to do the most.  The PWP system was extremely USA-centric so those that were in the northeast or were able to go to Worlds and lock up a qualification did so.
b)  They did not necessarily value the invite most, human behavior is not a direct correspondence between value and commitment, but is also guided by the probability of success.  For example, someone could value a date with [insert celebrity here] VERY highly, but they'd never place any time into it because P(success) is so low.  Some kid in Europe could have valued the invite much higher than any of us who actually qualified, but because he couldn't afford to go to Words, his P(success) was low and he put 0 effort into the system instead.
7)  "Recall that this isn't a social, political, or economic system in which one can argue the chicken-and-egg syndrome (does the system cause the behavior or does the behavior necessitate the system?). This is a qualification system for a collectible card game.:  What purpose does this line serve other than to attempt to belittle the people who wanted to qualify for the Pro Tour?  I'm so sorry something I wanted to do isn't important enough for Jon Agley, who wants to appoint himself God for a day, to think it was important.
8)  "Assuming a method of ensuring such a process would not ultimately be fatal, I have no doubt that a number of players would qualify for the tour via Scorpion Bath (SBQ).":  Just listing some more quotes that prove that you have no idea what you're talking about.
9)  "It illuminated the manner in which many people in young adulthood are identifying and valuing different aspects of their lives":  It didn't do this at all, at least for me (which you would know if you actually read my article).  I used the PWP system as an escape from other aspects of my life; it was dumb, but it doesn't come close to defining my life.

tl;dr:  This article is bad and you should feel bad for writing it.

I Asked the Magic 8 Ball Something!

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/finance/23516_Wise_Buys_Are_You_Smarter_Than_A_Magic_8Ball.html

How to Lose Money Compared to the Null Hypothesis

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/finance/23507_The_Financial_Value_Of_Dark_Ascension.html (it's premium, "sorry" if you can't read it)

Ben Bleiweiss is obviously a very knowledgeable (if not the most knowledgeable) guy in mtg finance.  However, he is not a particularly good player and his evaluations of cards (and the prices derived from these evaluations) should not necessarily be taken as accurate.  However, in his latest pre-release set review, Ben included a reason you should take his reviews seriously when he devoted a section to evaluating his Innistrad predictions.

"So in short, I was right on 61 cards and wrong on 14. I wish my investment portfolio could hit 50% of the time these days, much less 81% of the time."

This is one of the most misleading statements to be included in any mtg finance article and I hope to debunk it here.

The reality Ben wants you to believe (I didn't include the cards he called bulk since even I have more of a life than that):

Of the cards that weren't predicted as bulk, he got the direction of movement 65% correct (I am too lazy to calculate if this is of any statistical significance, but let's give Ben the benefit of the doubt and say it is.  Also, if you include all the bulk predictions Ben's rate is over 80%).  So if we, as a reader of this fine piece, listen to his advice and choose to buy at pre-release prices if he says the card will go up or stay the same and wait until now to buy it if he says the card will go down, our total cost would be:  $199.75 compared to the $257.25 one would spend if they bought each card at the pre-release price (I am not including the 5 dual lands since there was not individual predictions).  So overall Ben's predictions, on first glance, seem incredible and would have saved the consumer almost 25% of the cost of the set.


What's Really Happening


In reality the only person our hypothetical above would benefit is someone whose goal is to acquire four of each card regardless of when (or if) they actually use that card.  A more useful way of looking at things is to evaluate the purpose of a pre-release pricing guide.
1)  The pre-release is when supply of cards is lowest and demand is the greatest, therefore it is a good assumption that card prices will always go down.  So what happens if we replace all of Ben's predictions with down in the previous example?  We end up with a total set cost of $188.50, a 5% savings compared to  the method utilizing Ben's predictions above.  So by listening advice that you paid for you lose money compared to someone who is under the very obvious impression that prerelease card prices will go down.
2)  Since you don't own any cards in the set yet, knowing the price of a card will go down isn't helpful (since there's no way to take advantage of other people overvaluing the card unless you create some sort of card futures market) so the most important takeaway from a set review is to know the cards that will go up in the future and invest in them.  Here's what would happen if you took Ben's advice about cards that would go up in the future:

For every set of these cards you would have lost $9.75 out of a $24.25 investment (over 40%).  Therefore, by correctly utilizing Ben's predictions, you would have once again paid to lose money.  


It is therefore inexcusable to claim "if you had sold off the cards I said to sell off and bought the cards I said to buy, you would have ended up a lot more ahead than behind"  since this doesn't represent the reality of the situation at all (not even considering the fact that you would not be able to sell any card for scg's sell price).  This is not even including the fact that the card Ben claimed was the "most overrated card in the set" (Geist of St. Traft) is now triple of what Ben's predicted price (and almost double its pre-sale price).  In conclusion, Ben using his Innistrad set review predictions as a reason about why you should trust him about his Dark Ascension review is an outright misuse of statistics and good taste.

-Chris Mascioli
@dieplstks on twitter