M:TG

So all the threads here are either flamewars or something boring to me. I'm going to start a slightly more fun topic.

Anway, I recently got back into Magic: the Gathering. Anyone else here play?

I got my start back in 1994 when revised was out. Sadly, I got rid of all my cards a ways back and my current collection only really dates back to Mirrodin (with some Onslaught-block stuff someone gave me). I kind of miss some of those old sets (especially the Tempest block), but I love the new card design.

Zendikar seems pretty fun right now. I need to get some more cards to make myself a good ally deck.

I have a bud who works at a comic shop that is really into Magic and Warhammer 40k. He tried to get me into it, but for whatever reason it never really stuck to me. All I have is a somewhat old Kithkin deck.

I started around the beginning, then stopped during CoK block.

God I hated those sets.

Legion/Onslaught are still my favorite sets though =) Slivers ftw.

I play here and there, but with other people's decks since I do not own my own. But the latest cards are the most imbalanced, namely Planeswalkers, my GOD the Planeswalkers! (+2: mill 5 of my cards, -8: all monsters indestructible; what the FUCK!)

My best kind of deck style seems to be Elf/Forest style, namely with lifegain and tons of tokens.

I used to play that in the 90's, and stopped some time after Urza's Legacy came out. I've still got my old decks upstairs...it'd be fun to play again but I don't think they'd stand much of a chance nowadays.

Steeveeo said:

I play here and there, but with other people's decks since I do not own my own. But the latest cards are the most imbalanced, namely Planeswalkers, my GOD the Planeswalkers! (+2: mill 5 of my cards, -8: all monsters indestructible; what the FUCK!)

heh, and I thought power-gaming was bad in the Urza's series (with all those cards that went back to your hand when they went to graveyard).

They should've stuck with the older formula...having most powerful cards with drawbacks is far more balanced than having none at all.

I'm a tourneyfag, albeit less intensely than I was at one time. While moving into my dorm, or perhaps some time before it, I lost most of my good decks and rares. Maybe they even got stolen. Easily a couple thousand dollars worth of cards. It was disheartening, to say the least. Lately now I only draft at my college to try to slowly build my collection and a couple of staple competitive decks back up. The people here are mostly scrubs and I usually manage to net a profit with my playing, getting good, valuable pulls after winning a draft. So, slowly I'm piecing together priority deck #1, Legacy Merfolk.

After I get Legacy Merfolk together I'll probably build the deck "Boros Buswhacker" for Standard for some crazy aggro shit, I really like the way that deck plays. That or I'll go for Vampire. I had Jund (the deck that's currently the best in Standard) completely built before the loss of my cards, but didn't like playing it much anyways.

After that, or maybe before, I'll start working on rebuilding my favorite EDH deck. EDH, for the uninitiated, is an extremely fun casual format that works like so: Your deck has a "General," who is a legendary creature. Your deck may only be the colors of your General, and you can play your General at any point during your turn--when it dies, it goes into the Remove from Game zone. Your deck is 100 cards, including the General, and you can only use one of each card that is not a basic land, ie, "Singleton." You can kill players by depleting their 40 life, or by doing 21 damage to them with your general. And, oh yeah, EDH is a multiplayer format. It's fun times, the way the game should be played really.

But yeah, other than that I just draft Zendikar, and the new set, Worldwake. These are good draft sets, and somewhat less tiresome than the Alara Block was.

The Ultimate DooMer said:

heh, and I thought power-gaming was bad in the Urza's series (with all those cards that went back to your hand when they went to graveyard).

They should've stuck with the older formula...having most powerful cards with drawbacks is far more balanced than having none at all.

Power gaming isn't worse than it was in Urza's block now. In fact it's considerably better. However "power creep" is a word on everyone's lips. Basically what's happened in the past 10 years is gradually creatures have been getting better and better, and spells have been getting worse and worse. However, at the same time removal, your way of getting rid of these powerful creatures, has been getting much, much better and more prolific. So huge creatures may be all over the place, but often a spell that costs a single mana will make them go away. And Wizards has decided to get rid of all of the spells that would make people cry in the past. Counterspell was deemed too powerful, so they replaced it with Mana Leak which was deemeed too powerful, which was replaced with Cancel which no respectable player will ever use. Planeswalkers, despite the fact that I was initially opposed to them, aren't really broken at all and are very easy to deal with. The people making the game really understand balance better than they did in 1993 or even 1998. Every once in a while they print a mistake, but this usually gets sorted out with the proper response within the next couple of sets.

I still play, but mostly Legacy. Recently finished a Crucible Pox deck, and am working on a Dredge deck now (also for Legacy).

In the terms of "power creep", look at what four mana would get you then and now. Blastoderm and Flametongue Kavu were awesome, and for one mana more you had Spiritmonger which was thought to be completely broken. Now look at creatures like Baneslayer Angel :/

I know next to nothing about MTG, but I posted this on my Facebook yesterday, and some lulz ensued.

eargosedown said:

I started around the beginning, then stopped during CoK block.

God I hated those sets.

Kamigawa? Yeah, that was quite possibly the worst block ever. All the mechanics were terrible and would never work outside of block.

Legion/Onslaught are still my favorite sets though =) Slivers ftw.

Heh, I'm kind of sad I missed those. Slivers are my favorite creature type ever (and I LOVE creature decks, so...). So much so that I actually spent $35 on the new premium slivers deck (though mostly because I didn't have any slivers anymore and really wanted a slivers deck).

Steeveeo said:

I play here and there, but with other people's decks since I do not own my own. But the latest cards are the most imbalanced, namely Planeswalkers, my GOD the Planeswalkers! (+2: mill 5 of my cards, -8: all monsters indestructible; what the FUCK!)

Planeswalkers aren't terribly broken. They can only use one ability per turn, so it usually takes several turns for them to activate their big ability. Also, they can be attacked (as if there were another player on the table), which makes them fairly vulnerable.[/B][/quote]

The Ultimate DooMer said:

I used to play that in the 90's, and stopped some time after Urza's Legacy came out. I've still got my old decks upstairs...it'd be fun to play again but I don't think they'd stand much of a chance nowadays.

Heh, I stopped during the Urza block, too. It's weird seeing all the newer players who seem to wax nostalgic about it, saying it was the "best set evar" and so forth. There was hardly anything I found interesting in it. What's really weird are people who say "every card in that set was awesome! Every rare was so good you could build a deck around it!" yet I bought at least 7-8 packs of that block, and never got a single rare worth a damn. Also, that block favored blue a lot, and I've never liked blue much.

They should've stuck with the older formula...having most powerful cards with drawbacks is far more balanced than having none at all.

Eh, it's not too terrible. They realized that anything over 4-5 mana was hard to play in a fast-paced game, so adding yet ANOTHER drawback to those big cards was a bit much. Also, any creature can be burned (red), unsummoned (blue), or straight-out killed (black) at any time, any artifact and enchantment can me taken out just as easily (green), instants and sorceries can be countered (blue), and someone could just use some sort of wrath of god effect whenever (white). Powerful cards are usually countered by the fact that commonplace cheap cards are out there waiting to take them out in one shot. Also, it's better than what they used to do...

Shaikoten said:

Power gaming isn't worse than it was in Urza's block now. In fact it's considerably better. However "power creep" is a word on everyone's lips. Basically what's happened in the past 10 years is gradually creatures have been getting better and better, and spells have been getting worse and worse. However, at the same time removal, your way of getting rid of these powerful creatures, has been getting much, much better and more prolific. So huge creatures may be all over the place, but often a spell that costs a single mana will make them go away. And Wizards has decided to get rid of all of the spells that would make people cry in the past. Counterspell was deemed too powerful, so they replaced it with Mana Leak which was deemeed too powerful, which was replaced with Cancel which no respectable player will ever use. Planeswalkers, despite the fact that I was initially opposed to them, aren't really broken at all and are very easy to deal with. The people making the game really understand balance better than they did in 1993 or even 1998. Every once in a while they print a mistake, but this usually gets sorted out with the proper response within the next couple of sets.

Yeah, they've come a LONG way in figuring out what balances the game. When I first began playing, there was very little color identity and there were absolutely broken cards out there that could ruin any game. Nowadays everything fits into the colors perfectly and while the occasional broken card does appear, it's usually a rare and won't find much of a place in casual play.

Also, anything is better when dealing with balance that what they did between Ice Age and Tempest when they decided to just underpower the hell out of everything. Homelands was the shining example. EVERYTHING in that set completely sucked, and any good card you find in it I can assure you there is a better version of in another set. That's also the era where they decided a lot of the classic cards like lightning bolt, black/white knight, hypnotic specter and serra angel were overpowered and removed them from the game. That made me sad. Now they are all back in the core set, though. :)

I just started playing recently, and got my older brother's old cards. They are all pretty old, not much past ice age. I really don't like the new designs anyway :P

I like the idea of powerful cards having drawbacks. I don't think the game should be won based on drawing a certain card. At least, I wouldn't have much fun winning that way. I once destroyed my opponent only because I played Momentum (+1/+1 every upkeep). I immediately removed that card, because it was stupid. Of course it can be disenchanted or the creature could be terrored but the win was simply not exciting. A friend of mine had a similar green creature, which got +1/+1 anytime a spell is played. Ridiculous!

Anyway, I've been using my brother's small collection of cards, which probably has 2 gold cards, 2 rares, a few uncommons, and only about 200 cards in total. It's extremely tight but I'm a complete noob so I feel it has gotten me to intensively learn how each card works in game. I've currently mixed all the colors up - black/green/red, red/white/blue, and blue/black. But, I definitely need more cards - my decks are just not well rounded.

Danarchy said:

Planeswalkers aren't terribly broken. They can only use one ability per turn, so it usually takes several turns for them to activate their big ability. Also, they can be attacked (as if there were another player on the table), which makes them fairly vulnerable.

One or two planeswalkers, yeah. However, face a deck full of them: "Ok, mill your top 5 cards, discard a card, tap your lands, oh, and this guy is full, I now have a 47/47 with trample on the field."

And I played a 2v2, normal decks versus a planeswalker deck and a planeswalker+mill deck. Example of one card from the recent versions that was in that second deck: "Every time this creature attacks or blocks, mill the top 10 cards of the target player's deck."

I started MTG in 1994, when Revised and Fallen Empire were the current series. Starting that early was great as most of the vintage cards were not that pricy (power 9 , duals and many other power cards).

I keep on collecting overall good cards, good Foil Legendary Permanents (not the crappy ones) and basic lands (collecting for the different illustrations).

But unfortunately I don't have time anymore for playing nor have buddies that do => married, work, commute, home ownership and, thank god, no kids.

I guess since we're all giving our MTG History, here goes.

I started around 4th/Ice Age, all that happy stuff, but was pretty horrible as a kid. I slowly got better and better through Urza's Saga etc., and started understanding how mana curves worked and how to make an effective deck in the style of "Sligh." I finally got into tournaments and all that around Invasion Block and was really learning how to put a serious deck together. Odyssey and all of that held very little interest for my playing style and I petered out. When I quit I was using an early goblin build without warchiefs, siege-gangs, etc, because they didn't exist, instead using the ever awesome goblin grenade and goblin kings, lackeys, marshals, etc, lightning bolts. My Standard deck was an awesome five color, one of the rare blocks where you could get away with playing that. I started going to, and winning, tournaments, but then suddenly got bored with it all and quit.

I didn't get back to playing seriously until the release of Lorwyn, when I discovered you could make this play: Turn 1, 1/1 Merfolk, turn 2, 2 unstable mutations, and then play fucking Lord of Atlantis. And Merrow Reejery. So with two Merfolk Lords existing, I was like HELL YAE and built the hell out of a mono blue Merfolk deck and commenced to play Merfolk in Standard for 2 years straight, in its various builds. So good was I at that deck that I won a tournament qualifying me for a $10,000 prize tournament for World Championships 2008.

Worlds was pretty damn fun, too. I met Richard Garfield who signed my foil Lord of Atlantis and put a fish hook through his tail (thankfully one of the few cards I still have.) I also beat the head of Magic R&D, Mark Rosewater, in a Jace vs. Chandra duel deck and he gave me a $50 holiday joke foil. The tournament itself was so-so, as it was sealed deck. My pool was OK, and had 2 Masters of Etherium(!) and a Quietous Spike, but that shit can't even come close to all of the beasty Naya decks that were on the field. I won my first two games but lost my last 3 and dropped. But, good times, and it was in Memphis, so good music, food, and bad beer.

Anyways, I kept on playing, played a ton of Legacy in addition to Standard, and had a bitching EDH deck that I used all the time. And then lost my cards, so, feh. Now I just do lame drafts and win fetchlands that I hope to trade off for more Legacy cards.

I got my start with revised also, back in 1994. My friend's dad bought me a booster pack. Shortly after I received a revised starter set for my birthday and started playing with the neighbourhood kids. It was fun for a long time, but I fell out of it shortly after Tempest/Stronghold was released, I guess because the game lost its mystery. My favourite expansions were Antiquity and Arabian Nights, for personal reasons.

Gotta wonder, did anyone else play competitively, or are you all Knights of the Kitchen Table? Nothing wrong with Casual players, but it really does make a night and day difference on play styles, obviously.

Boy, did you go up the right tree.

I do play MtG, I own at least 1500 physical cards, from the original 1993 sets up to Alara block. For minority sets, I have some rehashed Kamigawa cards (Divine vs Demonic), a Snow-covered Island (I think from Ice Age), and the Izzet Gizmometry theme deck.

I also have the old school abandonware MicroProse game on my desktop and Apprentice.

Shaikoten said:

Gotta wonder, did anyone else play competitively, or are you all Knights of the Kitchen Table? Nothing wrong with Casual players, but it really does make a night and day difference on play styles, obviously.

Casual, usually with a friend or a bunch of them (multiplayer ftw) apart from a sealed-deck tourney at the time Urza's Legacy was launched. Although I did have a fast black deck that was unbeaten in 1-on-1 (mostly Revised/4th with some shadow creatures thrown in), and at the time one guy said that I played to be a twat :p (when I used it)

Started in 94 and finished in 99, picking up some German cards along the way when I was on holiday one year. (the box said Unlimited but the deck was actually Revised cards with 4th graphics :p)

Hey, if anyone wants to hit me up for a game of Magic I'm practically open, just PM me and I'll send you my MSN address or arrange for a time both of us could play (I'm in Alaska time zone). We're playing online via Apprentice of course, and since it uses IP addresses to host and join games (like ZDoom's multiplayer function), arrangements are best left in PMs. I'll also co-op with ZDoom on the subject of using IP's.

Apprentice is kinda crappy :\ Magic Workstation has a lot more functionality nowadays, and I'm pretty sure IPs works fine. Plus better deckbuilder, better full art support, etc, etc.

I'll look into MWS as well as that Netrunner version, but I'll still be available on Apprentice in case anyone here uses it.

I am more geared toward casual/semi-competitive mindset, where the variety of decks is wider and people play for FUN.

I generally don't like players that are ONLY competitive, the decks are repetitive and predictable, yet strong. These players usually have a crappy attitude toward those that play for fun.

Although I have all the cards needed to make a top notch vintage/type 1 deck, I mostly like to play theme decks : 5 color legends (my fave), slivers, black drain, red sligh, elves, soldiers, green/black juzam/monger...

Yay, Magic history time.

My cousin first showed me Magic back in '94 and I thought it looked pretty fun. He didn't really know how to play at the time (he was 9, I was 10) but gave me a basic rundown of how it worked. I remember the first card I saw was a Hurloon Minotaur. A few months later my friend's older brother picked the game up and at this point I knew I had to start playing. I bought a pack of Revised and got a Plateau and Verduran Enchantress but sadly traded those away pretty soon after. I had a hard time opening the pack and scratched the hell out of the back of the Paralyze that was in there. I still own that card, with scratch marks and all. I somehow held on to it all the time.

Anyway, then Summer Magic came and you couldn't find any revised anywhere due to the recall, only Fallen Empires, so everyone started accumulating millions of that set (I bought a set of 10 packs of FE for $5 at one point). Then I heard there was this Ice Age set coming out which was able to be played as a stand alone game or with other Magic cards. I thought it sounded cool so I pre-ordered a starter. Unfortunately, the company I bought it from ran out of copies and compensated me, but I started buying a ton of it after that. 4th ed came out around the same time and I was horribly disappointed at what cards they took out of it so I wasn't a huge fan, but still bought some (I remember actually getting the intro set with 2 starters, a bag of beads, and a big rulebook a couple times). So there was Ice Age, 4th ed., Fallen Empires and Chronicles (THAT was an awesome set...wish they'd do that again) and that was fun, but started to peter out and Homelands came out. I was horribly turned off by that and ended up ditching the game for a bit.

I ran into a pack of Mirage a while later and was kind of excited by the cards I got in it (a Coal Diamond for one), but I never got hugely into the Mirage block. All my neighborhood friends had stopped playing by that time and I think I was into both Star Trek CCG and Star Wars CCG. Then Tempest came out and it was fucking awesome with the slivers and awesome rath cycle stuff. Stronghold was even more awesome and it was around this time that I actually started figuring out the game for real and started winning. I even won a game of ante where I fielded an Elder Dragon Legend. Scared the shit out of my opponent. :P Exodus...I wasn't as huge of a fan. For some reason I was annoyed with the changes they made to the card format (even though they were minor and useful).

The Urza set came along, I got bored, dropped the game and got rid of my cards (HUGE MISTAKE). I didn't play nagain until a friend (who worked at a WotC retail store) convinced me to play a Mirrodin draft (they needed one more person). I had a bunch of fun, loved the new card format, and ended up buying some packs of Mirrodin on my way out. I got really into the Mirrodin block and bought a ton (I have at least two of each common and like three dozen rares from the first set), but I couldn't seem to convince my friends to play. Kamigawa bored the hell out of me, but Ravnica got me back in (again I have a ton of cards from the first set there), but I stopped because I had no one to play against. I recently started playing again because what the Hell.

In retrospect, I'm sad for 1) giving away all my old revised, Ice Age, FE, Chronicles, and Tempest block cards, 2) missing the Invasion and Onslaught blocks which were apparently really awesome, 3) missing the Time Spiral block. But oh well, I'm having fun now.

Shaikoten said:

Gotta wonder, did anyone else play competitively, or are you all Knights of the Kitchen Table? Nothing wrong with Casual players, but it really does make a night and day difference on play styles, obviously.

I've always been a mostly casual player. I only play games for fun, never to win. The only actual DCI tourney I've ever been in was the Mirrodin draft game. I think I like draft the best because it puts everyone on an equal playing field. I've even played a few casual games of it with friends.

I'm thinking I might actually get into tourneys, though, when I start college (and have my weekends free). Seems like a way of getting a lot of cool premium cards, at the least. :P

I started playing Pokemon again. Oh wait,wrong thread :<

Never got into M:TG, although my brother used to be into it when he was in middle school, though I believe he has grown out of it long since then

I don't really play according to "theme", but I cannot make a deck without using blue cards. I usually try to find a combo in my binder I could pull off and use that. Buying theme decks opened up more combos to me than I could have done just buying booster packs.

Decided to blow a bunch of money on Magic today since I'm fairly good for funds at the moment. I got 4 packs each of Zendikar, Worldwake, and M10. Here's some of the highlights (i.e. rares):

Xathrid Demon - Yay, Lord of the Pit 2.0
Quest for the Nihil Stone - Meh.
Mind Spring - I remember when it was called "Brain Geyser".
Shinx of Lost Truths - Slightly better than the Goliath Sphinx I pulled before.
Joraga Warcaller - This shall benefit my elf deck nicely. :D
Hellkite Charger - This thing is pretty sweet.
Captain of the Watch - Hell yeah, definitely making me a new soldier deck.
Celestial Mantle - Holy crap.
Marshal's Anthem - Yeah, totally making that soldier deck.
Oran-rief, the Vastwood - Another boon for my elf deck.
Howling Mine - Yay, another one. I've always loved this card. It's especially awesome with Zendikar and landfall.
Everflowing Chalice foil - Not a rare, but a pretty good card, and it looks awesome when shiny.
Novablast Wurm - I was planning a white/green ally deck and this seems kind of counter-intuitive to it. However, it could be a good panic button ender.

Aside from that, I got a few foils and a few good allies, that's what there was of interest. So I'm going to be making a white/green ally deck and possibly a red/black all-purpose Zendikar deck. That just leaves blue, my least favorite color ever. Maybe I'll make an all-blue deck as a personal challenge.

Interesting to see which cards you consider good from what you got. Celestial Mantle, for example? This is a pretty low draft pick, and people avoid using it. This is mostly by virtue of the fact that it's a creature enchantment. It's expensive, and it causes you to put all your eggs in one basket. The creature you enchant then gets a huge bright red target on its head. Then your opponent can kill two cards with one spell, and you're at a card disadvantage. Card advantage is the name of the game in competitive Magic. Will this card be worth more cards than my opponent's? Will it come out fast enough to be effective?

Card Advantage and "The Curve" are the two most important themes in good deckbuilding in Magic. The curve, for those you MTG players that don't know, has to do with making sure the casting costs of your cards are distributed in such a way that you will get the most effect, as quickly as possible. "Curving out" is having something productive to play on at least turn 2 for 2 mana, turn 3 for 3 mana, and turn 4 for 4 mana: Basically so you're using each turn to the best effect you can for kicking your opponent's ass

Kirby said:

I started playing Pokemon again. Oh wait,wrong thread :<

Never got into M:TG, although my brother used to be into it when he was in middle school, though I believe he has grown out of it long since then

Dude. Dude. Gengar lvl X ftw.

A friend of mine was taught how to play Magic a few months ago and he in turn taught me. We are currently playing in a magic league with Zendikar and Worldwake cards. I have a green/white deck with landfall as a big focus, after being shown what I should run. I got two mythic rares for this deck, lucky me.

Avenger of Zendikar - The most expensive card in my deck but usually turns the tide.
Felidar Sovereign - Haven't got to play him much yet but he's worth keeping.

I currently do not have a deck in physical cards, but I'm just now considering either to try to make a blue/red speed or a blue/black control. I could probably make a speed deck with just cards with a converted mana cost of four or less, plus some Izzet stuff (replicate ftfw). Maybe even a few of higher cost.

Also, Firefox doesn't recognize the word "mana", even if it's been thrown around for years.

EDIT:

Lands:
x12 Island
x12 Mountain

Creatures:
x3 Jawbone Skullkin
x2 Clay Statue
x1 Izzet Guildmage
x2 Izzet Chronarch
x2 Cloud Elemental
x2 Air Elemental
x2 Wind Drake
x2 Phantom Warrior
x1 Clone
x3 Mons's Goblin Raiders
x3 Brighthearth Banneret
x2 Anaba Bodyguard
x1 Keldon Warlord

Others:
x2 Shock
x2 Pyromatics
x3 Train of Thought
x1 Whiplash Trap
x1 Boomerang
x1 Sapphire Charm

This is primitive and creature-centric, but should get the job done.