Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

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Never_Scurred
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Anyone here play Magic: The Gathering?

Post by Never_Scurred »

I've been looking for a non-video game to play in my free time and since I don't have the patience for WH40K, I decided to get into this card gaming shit. One of my coworkers who plays Magic put me on to this card shop around where I live that hosts games and whatnot. Anyone have any experience with this game? I like card games so this may be a perfect fit.
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Limbrooke
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Post by Limbrooke »

A few people on here seem to be interested.
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gabe
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Post by gabe »

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Post by TLB »

I'm actually looking to get rid of my MTG cards. Gotta find some kid who wants to play it around here and make me some monies.
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KindGrind
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Post by KindGrind »

As I said in the thread liked, very addictive/fun to play, and also a terrible money sink.
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Elixir
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Post by Elixir »

I used to, in the 90's. It was fun, but eventually I stopped caring for it around 2003. It's probably the most unique card game I've come across, but a really awful way of wasting money.
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Post by szycag »

I hate it. I'm kinda biased though because I don't really like any medieval style fantasy stuff.
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Post by mr_m0nks »

Probably one of the most finely crafted games systems ever created, and a fun game to play too,
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Tempest
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Post by Tempest »

As has been said before, lots of fun, but lots of money to be put into it. It's not that it's that expensive to start (A sound strategy is to buy a pre-made theme deck at the card shop and refine that one into a playable deck), but making multiple decks is a strain on the wallet, ESPECIALLY if you want to try and play tournament legal (Type 2 at least).

Advice:

*Watch and learn at the next gathering
*Ask your co-worker/his gaming mates if you can borrow a deck (Any self respecting MtG player has at least 2)
*Try to play/watch all the five different colors to get a feel for them
*Decide if it's for you without spending any money.
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KindGrind
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Post by KindGrind »

Great advice, Tempest.

Toying with the lesser cards is a good idea at first. Worst thing to do is buy everything you need for Merfolk or Faeries (or any other known dominant Standard deck) and crush people with it, having no idea why it's good and how it really works. Try stuff for yourself. You'll find out naturally after some time what's good and most importantly why it is. That's how you'll get more out of the game.

Buying booster packs don't make much sense, imo. If you do at least do something with it. Drafting, although not simple at all when you're beginner, will get you to play with lots of random cards and get a feel for them. Plus, it will give you a pool of cards to play with in the future.

Just thoughts from someone who did play the game competitively a lot and for a long time :)
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Post by jonny5 »

i have no first hand experience with this stuff....but i used to work with a guy who was HARDCORE into it.....

he said that the main problem with the game is if you have loads of cash to blow on it you can just buy all the best cards and slaughter people, which seems an unfair advantage to me

basically the richer person is going to win...

is this true?

only card game i ever played was the starwars one.....and we only played it for like a year and got bored

but i did play a lot of AD+D/shadowrun in highschool....and quite a bit of WH40k as well as necromunda and battletech

grew out of them like a decade ago tho
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Post by Tempest »

jonny5 wrote: he said that the main problem with the game is if you have loads of cash to blow on it you can just buy all the best cards and slaughter people, which seems an unfair advantage to me

basically the richer person is going to win...

is this true?
Yes and no. Yes, having more money to spend means you can afford more rare cards, but you can't just get a deck full of rares and expect to win hands down. A way to get past this is to play in a "Draft." You and 3+ other people buy a bunch of booster packs and do a kind of round robin card draft and use only those cards in a tournament (Along with normal lands) to ensure fairness. You can also buy a few extra to give out as prizes.

But, it's not like building one deck to the max is going to break the bank. The trouble is once you have your one kickass deck and you say to yourself, "Self, you know what? I'm kind of bored with playing this deck right now, I'm going to make a second kickass deck. And now a third, and a fourth, and.... OH! This is an AWESOME rare! Too bad I don't have a deck to make use of this properly....well.... not yet anyways."
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Post by KindGrind »

...and then you build decks for Extended (other format) so you can play against other people in Extended season... It does never end :)

I'll repeat the mechanics are incredibly good and the game's very addicting. It's a lot of fun, but you must be aware that it's not cheap. It CAN be, but one day you'll want to buy more that's for sure. Variety is the spice of like :)
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Post by Arvandor »

Elixir wrote:I used to, in the 90's. It was fun, but eventually I stopped caring for it around 2003. It's probably the most unique card game I've come across, but a really awful way of wasting money.
Same here. Only I stopped playing in 2001. Still have all my decks, and the non-deck cards should be lying around somewhere. I don't think I have anything newer than Ursa's block though, however old that is. I think 6th edition was new or not out yet.

Now Rage... That was another favorite of mine as far as CCGs go. Too bad it never took off like Magic did.
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Post by lgb »

I don't play it a whole lot, but it's fun. Always great to kick back and take stress out on burning up imaginary projections. Anyone who wants to start money-burning card games should definitely start off with either this or Yu-Gi-Oh!. Those are the two big stable-and-fun games I can think of.

Other honorable mentions are that recent World of Warcraft TCG (it's not bad at all) and VS System.
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Post by Ruldra »

I had a lot of fun playing Magic in the past, but if I could go back I wouldn't get started in it. The money you end up spending is just too much.

I played it for only 2 years (back in 1999) and had only 1 deck, but that alone sucked a lot of my money. God knows how much money you'd spend if you have 3+ decks and plays it for like 7+ years (like a friend of mine).

Don't get started in this shit. Just don't.
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Arvandor
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Post by Arvandor »

I'm just glad I didn't get into it when I had money to burn on it. I was jobless, in highschool, and living with/off my parents, so while I DID burn a pretty ridiculous amount of money on the game over the years (I started in 6th grade, and played basically until HS graduation), it could have been so much worse ^_^
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Post by BryanM »

Pauper magic is what wise people play for constructed.

Though getting ~100 cards for a dollar and meeting others who play it in real life as opposed to Magic Online.... eh....
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Post by MR_Soren »

In constructed (pre-build your own deck) tournaments it is tough to become competitive, and also difficult to remain competitive.

I personally prefer to play tournaments in limited formats. (draft, sealed deck) The card pool is provided at the tournament, and you have to build a deck with it on the spot and play it. I find it's more about skill and less about spending a fortune.

However, screw all that.

If you have buddies who like games, don't get into that collectible shit if you can avoid it. Try this card game instead: Dominions. You get everything you need to play in one box and it's quite fun.

This is probably the game that Ceph wanted Magic to be in that other thread.
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Post by Davey »

MR_Soren wrote:If you have buddies who like games, don't get into that collectible shit if you can avoid it. Try this card game instead: Dominions. You get everything you need to play in one box and it's quite fun.
I would have loved something like that back when I played Magic. It always bugged me that people with more money could buy better cards, even though I had more valuable cards than most of my friends.

My friends and I played when we were too young to have jobs, so we didn't have too much cash to blow on cards. It made the game pretty stale because we couldn't afford to have more than one good deck at a time. Starting a totally new deck would have required trading or selling most of our cards, which nobody was ever willing to do.

I liked the game itself, but I hated the collectible aspect of it (especially ante, but it didn't take long before we ignored that rule).
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Post by zaphod »

The game is an evil money sink.

When they removed interrupts from the game and just upgraded instants to where interrupts were is when i lost my respect for the game.

I shock you for 2 points, takign yuu to 0 life i win.
In response, i shock you for 2 points taking you to 0 life. I win because you hit 0 life first. (under original rules that put off checkin for death by 0 life until all spells were resolved, this would have been a tie)

It was originally understood that even though spells were resolved last to first, they happened first to last, unless an interrupt was involved, because interrupts actually finished before the spell they interrupted. Hence, the postponing of the death check to allow all spells to be resolved.

Upgrading all instants to the capabilities of interrupts made it to spells actually DID happen last to first.

And honestly, there's just too damn much luck involved. If you don't make a mono colored deck, you have to worry about not only mana screw and mana gluts, but also color screw (where you get all your mana one color and all your cards another color). I've had every single one of these happen on a regular basis with the SAME DECK.

That, and they kept making broken cards for the longest time.
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Post by MR_Soren »

zaphod wrote:When they removed interrupts from the game and just upgraded instants to where interrupts were is when i lost my respect for the game.
Actually, instants always worked like that. They just modified interrupts to work within the rules for instants. I hated the change at first, but as I continued playing I realized that the game's rules are much cleaner and more manageable today.

I shock you for 2 points, takign yuu to 0 life i win.
In response, i shock you for 2 points taking you to 0 life. I win because you hit 0 life first.
In this scenario, why would the guy who responded simply not have used the shock earlier? This doesn't typically happen in a real game.

And honestly, there's just too damn much luck involved. If you don't make a mono colored deck, you have to worry about not only mana screw and mana gluts, but also color screw (where you get all your mana one color and all your cards another color). I've had every single one of these happen on a regular basis with the SAME DECK.
Two and three color decks that work consistently well are quite possible with the right mix of cards.
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Magic The Gathering - Card Geekery

Post by Cthulhu »

<This post and the next 30 or so (ending around here) were originally a separate thread (t=26368). I can't change post order, so please understand that a few replies may appear disjointed. -inc.>


I was really, really into Magic the Gathering back in middle school and high school. Sometime around 10 years ago (yes, it makes me feel old saying that) I quit the game, largely due to moving off to college.

Recently I found a local gaming store / coffee shop where a lot of people play it and I ... got sucked back in. Hoo boy. As lame as it felt at first, I must admit that I still really enjoy the game and have been having a blast playing it again.

Anyone else here play now or previously?
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Post by BryanM »

I keep going through phases where I kind of want to play Peasant Magic on Magic Online, but it's not been strong enough to get me to cash in the $10 to make an account. A format where the cards are so cheap, people have bots give them away versus the $1 billion monthly that's constructed or the limited queues...
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Post by Davey »

There are definitely a few people here that play it.

I played it a lot from the end of 8th grade through most of 9th grade. I started with 3rd edition and I think Homelands was the newest set when I quit. All of my friends quit, so I pretty much had to too.

I was going through some of my old stuff at my parents' house last fall and I found my Magic CD-ROM. I was hooked on it for a few weeks, although the AI is spectacularly dumb sometimes (casting Giant Growth on your creatures comes to mind).

I've been looking forward to the XBLA version, assuming you don't have to pay for cards (if so, screw that). Although I'm still pretty much playing nothing but VOOT so I won't mind if it gets delayed more.


<Mod edit: there was a link in the first paragraph to a thread that was later merged into this one. The vestigial link was removed. -inc.>
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Post by mortified_penguin »

I still have all my cards but I stopped playing after Mercadian Masques. My Phyrexian Dreadnought and I were undefeated for many years. :twisted:
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Post by MR_Soren »

Yeah, I've played off and on since 1994. I currently do a booster draft every Friday and occasionally try some constructed on Saturdays.
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Post by lgb »

Casually.

Spit on CCG/TCGs all you want, they're fun if you commit, and if you don't.
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Post by Lordstar »

no one playing there pokemans?
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Post by KindGrind »

Magic is pretty much like an old mistress you always go back to once you've had a taste. Played at the very beginning from unlimited and sold the moxen and stuff around Tempest. Only to try it again when Onslaught was out until Kamigawa. I played competitively and really enjoyed it. The money drain aspect of it is really terrible, though. When I quit again I sold all the foil playsets (lots) I had on ebay and moved on to shmups/movie collecting.

I have fond memories of lots of things Magic. Basically, I witnessed all kinds of retardedness in all ages of the game: when you could play with 4 strip mines, 4 dark rituals and 4 mind twists... when Disciple of the Vault was a true terror and Psychatog vs The Rock matchups were all the rage...

Fun times :)

Edit: My g/f told me many times that it's *the* worst turnoff in a man, though.
Last edited by KindGrind on Fri May 29, 2009 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento...
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