Magic: The Gathering

[Demongod86]

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.

[Nosauz]

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.

[Edgewalker]

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.

[Nosauz]

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.

[RWBladewing]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

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 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.

[einhorn303]

Originally Posted by RWBladewing

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).

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

Originally Posted by Nosauz

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.

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.

[RWBladewing]

Originally Posted by einhorn303

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

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.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by einhorn303

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.

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.

[synaesthetic]

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.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

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.

[RWBladewing]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Nosauz

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.

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.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by RWBladewing

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.

[RWBladewing]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

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.

[Nosauz]

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.

[brocko]

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

[RWBladewing]

Originally Posted by brocko

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

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). Was not happy about that at all.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by RWBladewing

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). 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.

[brocko]

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)

[Liddo-kun]

I think this article talks about the recent rules changes.

Magic 2010 Rules Changes

[Nosauz]

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.