The Value of Value – A Tale in 31 Tweets

Posted on June 22, 2012

ROI stands for “Return On Investment.” EV stands for “Expected Value.”

According to Wikipedia, EV is “the ratio of money gained or lost (whether realized or unrealized) on an investment relative to the money invested.” So, if you invest $1 and gain $10 on it, that’s +EV.

Since time immemorial, Magic players have been able to cite EV as the reason to do anything, such as finalize a trade or go to a tournament. Naturally, the tournaments with the bigger prize payouts have intrinsically more EV. I wrote about this way back in week twelve of my 52 FNMs column:

The other point I’m getting at is that since Magic players can cry “EV!” to justify playing the game, the more players who are more insecure about playing a children’s card game can justify the decision they’ve made by prattling on and on about all the EV they’re hitting. There’s at least one guy like this in every scene: He makes a big deal about how he only plays in the biggest tournaments (which is fine) while trying to make you feel like an idiot for playing at, say, FNM, pre–Planeswalker Points (which is not fine). He clearly harbors some deep-seeded insecurities about playing Magic, so he projects those insecurities onto you, and assures you that while you’re a nerd who’s wasting your time, he’s awesome for not putting up with all the bullcrap of a tournament with, ahem, less EV.

The most intelligent Magic players will tell you that they are fully aware that going to a Magic tournament is consistently −EV in a strictly monetary sense and that the value in Magic tournaments comes from the connections you make and the times you share with people.

All the players featured here know that to be true.

What sparked the following exchanges was Pro Tour: Amsterdam champion and regrettable fan of Boston sports Paul Rietzl innocuously noting many less intellectually gifted and significantly more insecure players prattling on about the SCG Invitational and how +EV it was.

Having been around the block more than a few times (Rietzl was once detailed as “warming [his] hands over a barrel fire in the caboose of the gravy train” by Jeff Cunningham), Rietzl cast a wary eye on the amateur crowd that is clamoring over “all this EV.”

The following dialogue is a result of this observation.