Magic: The Gathering
 

Does anyone else here play this, either paper or online? I've been playing since Revised with several extended breaks scattered throughout. I've recently come back from one such hiatus and am looking for possible opponents or just people's opinions regarding the game (favorite format, opinions of top decks, discussion about the just-finished World Championship, etc.)

My favorite format is limited, specifically draft. I really like the strategy involved in picking, building, and playing, and all the different possibilities and choices present during the entire thing. It's also nice to be able to use a lot of the cards in a pack that would otherwise never be played.

I don't really have a constructed deck at the moment. Was waiting to see what did well at Worlds before deciding on anything.

Feel free to post if you don't play but are curious about the game also. Wouldn't hurt to put all my useless knowledge regarding it to some purpose, heh.

I tried to play some years ago but my interest was soon lost when I saw the WOW and 5 Ringd mechanicks.
The game is surely one of the best card games in existence but I favor complexity over tactics.
By the way I no longer play any card games.

The game was quite a bit more complex a long time ago. As of late they've simplified things a lot though and blue has gone from the best (and most complex) color to worst, with creatures taking the place of spells. It is a bit similar to the WoW game now with its emphasis on creature tactics which is kinda unfortunate but I still enjoy it. Which mechanics did you mean specifically? I know I definitely could have done without "Mythic Rares" (= epics from WoW).

I used to be addicted to this game. I used to play IRL and MODO all the time when I was like 11 or 10. I remember starting when Onslaught was being released but I stopped after Mirrodin got extended, I think.

I sold everything in the end.

EDIT: My favorite deck had to be Psychatog and Tooth and Nail. =)

Used to play this game as well, never played it serious though
Some of my friends played it so they decided to teach me, cause I remembered the game from very long ago
When buying a boardgame there was a card package inside as well as an introduction to Magic and I really liked the drawings on the cards but was too young to understand it all
My friends taught me and I set up a zombie deck, however they all bought cards online (specific cards) which I didn't do cause I wasn't THAT serious about it, I just wanted to play it for fun not to own people with the awesome deck I set together with 3 months worth allowance
Eventually I stopped cause they all had much better decks and strategies and I didn't feel like pursuing this hobby as I got others and didn't want to spend that much money on new decks and cards, seemingly all the people I came across to that played it always played it to win and never to just have some fun. I still have the cards, I decided to keep them like my old pokemon cards, partly for the drawings partly or perhaps a rise in value
I remember my friend got this booster from his gf for his birthday and he really wanted a card of a dragon of sort.. I think it was a black one.. all I know was that it is expensive we all thought he was taking this hobby too serious and started joking around until he almost cut the pack in half with a pair of scissors, he decided not to and when he opened it he found the card he had wanted and that was expensive lol wouldn't want to know what he'd done if he had cut it in half

I used to play on internet on a private server... thoguh I don't remember the name of the program. I was never very good but I had some very nice fun decks, like a squirrel deck, a discard deck, and my favorite, a sliver deck

I've been playing for 12 years now, though I've spent a lot less time on the game as the years go on. T2 holds no interest for me, so the only Constructed format I play is Legacy. I think Legacy is the purest distillation of the game's essence. But Legacy has the problem of obscenely expensive cards. My Landstill deck costs $450, for just 60 pieces of cardboard...at a certain point, enough is enough.

Then again, there's always casual and other formats you can play for free. Mental Magic, making up your own expansions and proxying them...it's a game with limitless options.

Plus, you can always play online for free on Magic Workstation. lymmect09, with "Magic Online" you actually have to buy virtual cards. But there are third-party programs that just give you infinite access to everything and just let you play in an infinite sandbox.

Btw, shouldn't this be in the "Games" sub-forum? (And if you say MtG isn't anime or manga related, there are already two different Magic: the Gathering manga...)

Oh yeah, Magic Workstation, that was the program I used to use.

Well, we got a mahjong thread in there, so I'd say its fair game.

I still play. Not as much as i use to anymore. Mainly i just rock up to pre-releases with my brother because i kinda get "sponsored" by him. He pays, we play, and he keeps the cards :heh:

My bro use to play quite a bit back during Mirage and laid off at around Tempest or so. I still played every now and then with my neighbour who still loosely followed the game until about Urza or so.

I started playing again when some new neighbours moved in and they started getting into the game around Invasion and Judgement or so. We were really into the game by Onslaught and Legion. My bro got back in when Scourge hit. Next thing you knew everyone was playing Mirrodin and that was probably the period that i played the most magic ever lol :heh: Interest for me started dying out after Kamigawa and Ravinica, though i really did like the Time Spiral block.

Now a days the only magic i ever play are just random drafts with my brother and his friends (whenever they ever need an extra guy) or at pre-releases. My brother still loosely keeps up-to-date with the cards, but that's just because he's looking out for the latest dragons, angels, worms and/or demons to his collection. I've got this random zombie deck i keep just in case i meet someone who might wanna have a game sometime :heh:

Yeah i and my brother used to play this as well. Our main deck (and first) was Darksteel. Was quite passion for a long while and only start giving up when that Japanese deck out...

I thought it was due to exam that we gave up. But the actual reason was: we collected too many cards, and have too many combination to try out that... well you can guess it... we start to get tired of sorting them out ^^

I played it for around three to four years, but I haven't really touched it since 2007 now. The community here is, to be frank, filled with mostly jerks.

It's a great card game, the only one I've ever enjoyed as an adult, but it's become ridiculously expensive as of late. Sort of makes me glad I don't play it anymore. :p

I might pick it up again some time in the future, the mental exercise you get from playing a couple of games with intricate decks is really fun, and as others have mentioned there are virtually limitless combinations to be found with the sheer amount of available cards and formats.

I never got quite the same feeling from playing it online, though. I need to hold the cards in my hand while I ponder my next move to really get into it.

Its been 4 years. I played it and spent hundreds or dollars tracking and buying cards and collections. Don't wanna go back there.

I used to play it, I liked the game itself but I never put much efort on finding "rare" or "powerfull" cards, haven't played it in 5 yeras.

I currently play the game a ton. Been into it since mercadian masks and with the exception of one small break around mirrodin its been pretty constant. If you interested in playing over MWS or need any advice about the current metagame for standard or extended those are my two formats of choice and id be happy to help or play with anyone who is interested.

I was into it in the 10th-early 11th grade. I still remember a bit of how it goes but since everyone else fell out of it I did too. Still have my deck though.

Used to play MTG a lot, it was my obsession before I got into anime.
Would spend long afternoons playing with my cousins.

Well, everything has it's limits... realized one day that I've spent too much already.
So I finished my last project (Elvish Piper + Progenitus deck) and quit buying cards expensive cards after that.

yea magic is a pretty damn expensive game to get into to be honest =/

I think I had been exposed to that from Pokemon so I was pretty prepared and didn't buy more than 1 starter pack + 3- boosters in all. Ironically did pretty decent against more hardcore players with it.
I remember back when I wanted to buy some booster packs for Pokemon the cashier was like "That'll be crapload dollars please" I was like "holy crap" but I wasn't the one paying so I was ok with it.

About 6-7 years ago, I bought (maybe) 2 of those "sets" that got pushed out whenever a major tournament was over - with the winner(s)' decks being issued. No one I knew played the game, though, so I stopped; as everyone had mentioned, it was also fairly expensive to put together a competitive deck.

MTG does seem to be fairly popular in Japan as well, though, but there is also a lot of competition. Not sure how that affects its popularity, however.

I originally intended to put this in the Games forum but PM'd a mod before posting it and was told to put it here.

Yeah, the barrier of entry for Legacy is pretty expensive but there comes a point when T2 ends up being more expensive overall if played for long enough. With T2 you have to constantly buy new cards every year to keep an updated and legal deck whereas Legacy is more of a one-shot deal. Especially the current T2 where a single Baneslayer Angel can cost upwards of $50.

Yeah, that seems to have been the case for a lot of people. I took a break myself around the time that block (Kamigawa) was released. Of course, now that I'm pretty interested in Japanese culture, I'm very sorry I did as the block was absolutely overflowing with it.

This is an issue I find myself dealing with also. I enjoy the actual card game a lot more but there are so many jerks playing it around here. And it doesn't really get any better at higher levels of play either. I'm constantly seeing articles by pro players bragging about how they tricked their opponent into passing priority or convinced them to concede the game by pretending to search for a particular card that would win the game in that situation but wasn't even in their deck. Completely legal but such a lame way to win. There's also the issue of people refusing hand shakes or a "good game" because "only the loser is allowed to extend the hand" or "it wasn't a good game because I got mana screwed". Pathetic.

Online solves those issues pretty well (still a ton of poor sports but it's a lot easier to ignore them at least) and also eliminates the shuffling which at high levels of play seems to take longer than the actual game, but it feels a lot more mechanical overall. Playing normally with just friends instead of the "community" works, but unfortunately in my case most of my friends are pretty terrible at the game; beating them down repeatedly doesn't really help me improve and isn't all that much fun after a while. I have one friend who is just below pro level and we always have good matches but I don't get to see him that often.

I've never actually used MWS but I'd be interested once I figure it out. I'm pretty interested in trying out the Land Ramp Ultimatum or the Spreading Seas decks that they covered at worlds. So sick of Jund, heh. Normally that's completely my style of deck but it's fairly boring seeing it everywhere. At least it got beat in the finals of worlds.

Japan is pretty dominant on the pro scene. The Player of the Year title has gone to a Japanese player for the last 5 years. From everything I have read and watched, yeah, they are very serious and competitive. Was a big surprise when the national team just missed the finals this year. (I did mention I had lots of useless knowledge regarding the game in my opening post :p)

M:tG, where you have to spend $400 every year to maintain a competitive deck.

Cardboard crack indeed.

If they allowed proxies, I would definitely play this game, but you can't go to tournaments playing a deck full of proxies.

scg does in there limited format tournaments, basically were u get to proxie pow nine, but require the rest like fow etc. And standard wasn't all that bad till lorwyn, but then again the best standard was urza block and masques or tsp and kamigawa even though kamigawa was quite a gimped set because of jitte.

by the way, pros, don't really require much, most of it is based on luck, and basic poker logic. This is coming from a person who has won quite a bunch of ptqs and made it to top8 at 2 pt's. But then again I think pro play is best when it comes to limited/draft, because thats where your skills in synergy really come into play, well team limited is really skill intensive too, whereas draft only focuses on your drafting skills.

just remembered, mirrodin, oh man that was back when i played broostar... I KNOW broodstar affinity, talk about sad, but I mean turn 2 kill and being able to deal with eternal dragon in sb is pretty bad ass no matter how you think about it. Yea tog standarded then tog in extended was pretty sweet. I haven't played since lorwyn and I stopped playing professionally after mirrodin block but man I don't really enjoy the planeswalkers, since I tend to play control decks, my wrath of god/ damnations don't like planeswalkers at all.

I actually prefer to play online via MWS/Magic workstation play. I find the decks that come about to be much more interesting and challenging when everyone is put on the same playing field financial wise. Opposed to IRL magic were people with tons of cash to burn are always ahead, which really isn't about skill.

well garfield is a genius, basically restricting super rare cards to be tournament viable they pretty much ensured magics longevity by forcing soaring prices in the secondary market, sad but true, Garfield is a shrewd business man.

I still have my old affinity deck lying around somewhere (no Broodstar, heh). Could play it in Extended if I removed the Skullclamps and Disciples of the Vault (both are still banned) but there's really no point due to all the hate cards like Ancient Grudge floating around. Not to mention that it's not nearly as explosive compared to other decks as it used to be since they have made creatures much better in general recently. A 4 casting cost but possible to play on turn 1 2/2 creature (Frogmite) doesn't look so impressive compared to a 1 casting cost creature that with dual lands is almost guaranteed to be a 2/2 on turn 1 and a 3/3 on turn 2 (Wild Nacatl).

If you enjoy control you should be glad you quit, control is dead in Standard. This weekend's Worlds Top 8 was entirely aggro decks. Blue was not represented at all except in a Green/White/Blue aggro deck. Creatures are too strong and countermagic/card draw are too weak at the moment. I've typically been an aggro player but the level to which the scale has tipped is pretty disturbing.

You'd be surprised at how good Affinity can be in Legacy. The last Legacy tournament I played had a crowd of 16 people, and someone had taken his old Ravager-Affinity deck from Extended, and played it...and won the whole tournament. Sure, it can be hated, but it's so under the radar that it barely ever actually is sideboarded against.

Also, the broken part of Affinity isn't the cheap creatures, it's the Ravager and Cranial Plating. Zoo can't do anything half as outright nuts as swinging with an Ornithopter for 9...that's what really makes Affinity explosive. My analysis might be a bit off base, though, as I've never played with Affinity, just against it :P

That wasn't Garfield's original intent...he thought people wouldn't be crazy enough to spend 100's of $$$'s on cards, and thus, rather than power rares being automatic 4 of's, they'd be incredibly, well...rare. And not be seen all that much.

Of course, the original Alpha rules had lots of crazy stuff...no limits on how many of a single card you can play, for example. Yes, you could play 20 Black Lotus's, 20 Ancestral Recalls, and 20 Lightning Bolts. A lot of defining features of MtG weren't planned, they were accidents.

I'd say it was a combination of both super fast creatures and awesome interactions with Ravager/Plating actually. I still think it's lost some of its effectiveness now that the former has been rendered moot though. But yeah, it can still be really powerful if nobody's expecting it, but it's pretty terrible if people are, just because of how strong the hate actually is: Ancient Grudge, Ingot Chewer, and especially Kataki, War's Wage (it's pretty much game over if he comes down early and sticks). The other thing is that the deck can also just be hosed as an afterthought because people are already playing these cards against the "Tezzerator" deck. Keep in mind I am mostly talking Extended though, I have next to no experience with Legacy and I imagine the deck is more unexpected like you say and has more tools available there.

I disagree with Zoo not having comparable nuts plays though. The Grove of the Burnwillows version being able to recur a direct damage spell every single turn is pretty sick. And the deck plays Tarmogoyf. There's a reason he became the first card to break $50 while Standard legal, heh.

you'd never play 20 lotus 20 fireball... you'd probably play 14black lotus 18 ancestral recall and the rest fireball, for a turn one kill, but the point is the singles market has made wizards game a successful staying power entity, if WoG was 1 dollar in the singles market there would be no reason to draft tenth when it hit, but because it gets reprinted and is rare people will constantly value you it, singles market is the difference between pokemon and magic, and thats why magic will continue to fill that niche roll of card players.

RW, dude I ate rorix for breakfast, butchered goblins when they had saclands, all thank to turn 2 eternal dragon guaranteing my fourth land, and even MBC was good back in od/ons block which is probably my favorite standard block. It's also really sad that they pretty much nerfed the shit out of tinker, because god it took me soo long to build that

ya when i was casual just playing fmn's i had accrued 12 tarms, but they have lost quite a bit of their value since they rotated out. And you know a card is good when it sees play as a four of in vintage.

I used to play magic back in the days of MM/Nemesis but quit when some douchebag stole all my decks in the middle of a tournament. Never went back and rebuilt them or started over.

I need more attentive friends to watch my stuff when I need to pee, I guess.

dude that sucks, I had a rare binder stolen once, it had all my junk rares that I tend to trade to little kids for better cards but still yea it always sucks getting your crap stolen.

That sucks, and sadly, I hear about that kind of thing happening pretty frequently. Probably a good bet to just bring a backpack with everything in it and carry it with you everywhere.

Tarmogoyf had dropped a bit in value but looking at scg he's actually at $60 now, probably due to how much Extended play he saw at Austin and Worlds.

Funny you should bring up Rorix. Despite my username he's not actually my favorite card or anything. It's a pretty long story why I have this name, heh. I actually don't know what I'd say my favorite is. Can definitely tell you my least favorite though: Leveler. I used to open that damn thing in every draft I did or booster I randomly cracked. You had 12 Tarmogoyfs, I had 13 Levelers. I eventually just started taking them like 10th pick when there was nothing left I'd play because I figured if I was gonna see them so much I may as well collect them.

LOL, I acutally do have a "bad" rare that I loved to collect, It was the legendary land enchant which just made me laugh everytime I played sealed deck and dropped that on my opponents. but I won;t lie my favorite rare is still Wrath of God, I love all its art but when 10th edition came out with the bb 7th edition art, I had to get 4 of those, at the time I quit i had 32 wogs... overkill yes, but oh man if i ever had a chance to trade for them on the cheap i would. I usually took them as filler for an off kilter extended or vintage trade.

They just recently rotated that out of Standard and replaced it with this. Either for more $$ or to push regeneration. Probably a bit of both, considering the Terror replacement is also missing the no regeneration clause.

OMG, thank god I got out.... I just had a heartattack... it seems the game is more creature centric, which is a sad thing. Because aggro decks like goblins really didn't take skill to play where as control always required understanding of your opponnent, and your own deck, specifically in the mirror.... a las I see that magic's hey day has passed. Sigh.

Yea i don't like alot of the changes that they've been making to the game recently: mythic rares, planeswalkers, termilogy renames and i think they've even messed around with combat damage mechanics limiting the amont of tricks you can pull off then...

Scourge and Mirrodin were the golden era's of my magic days. Probably just because everyone around was playing it so much then :heh:

They did. No more damage on the stack, making creatures with sacrifice abilites as well as combat tricks much worse. Also you have to assign lethal damage to a blocker before being able to assign any to the second (except with deathtouch, which now needs special wording despite this change supposedly "simplifying" things:rolleyes:). Was not happy about that at all.

WTF.... magic was all about knowing how to manipulate the stack, to get the most out of your creatures, where as your spells where what let to victory not the creatures you controlled, seems their trying to caputre a more less involved crowd which is sad. Cuz who didnt love cabal archon, block tricks to keep the feild even. I remember playing archon in my cleric deck was mad fun due to twilight monlith.

Wait so lets say the guy chump blocks my 5/5 with two 4/4's, does that mean i'm forced into assign lethal damage? (eg: i HAVE to assign 4 damage to one as opposed to assigning 3dmg on A and 2dmg on B, which wouldn't be lethal for both but would weaken them enough for a pyroclasm to finish em both off)

I think this article talks about the recent rules changes. :)

Magic 2010 Rules Changes

WTF, mana burn..... really? how the hell is mindslaver supposed to win then?
ps those psuedo invasion taplands are can you say BROKEN talk about super mana fixing outside of green or artifacts

after reading that I have returned to find my childhood up in flames, and this fire leaves nothing in it's path, even the tears clinging to my check have been claimed by this insatiable fire... I pour this drink for a fallen friend.