Archive: 17 posts

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Tomorrow is the first of February, beginning of the new month and so on. It is also the day we'll get some more Magic to our lives in the form of Gatecrash. So, Magic: The Gathering is the world's first TCG (trading card game), as it was published in 1993. It is also, in my opinion the best one, as it is the only one with no cards dominating its meta. Tomorrow (1.02.2013), they will be adding a new set of cards to the game, in Return to Ravnica Block (1.10.2012), named Gatecrash. This set features 5 new colour-combinations (guilds) with unique mechanics: Gruul Clans (RG) with Bloodrush, Simic Combine (UG) with Evolve, House Dimir (BU) with Cipher, Orzhov Syndicate (BW) with Extort and Boros Legion (RW) with Battalion. These five guilds will be added to the game in addition to the already-existing guilds Izzet League (RU), Cult of Rakdos (BR), Golgari Swarm (GB), Selesnya Conclave (WG) and the Azorius Senate (UW). So what are your opinions on the new set? Are there any cards you specifically want from it, such as the sweet new planeswalker "Domri Rade?" What guild are you going to play? I chose to go with Orzhov, as I kicked *** with it in pre-release tournament. Please note that this thread talks about a trading card GAME, and it has a rightful place in this section of the forums. If you don't know what Magic is, then check wikipedia or ask here. Don't troll.

2013-01-31 10:07:00 Author: FreeAim Posts: 2462

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I was into Magic almost from the start, through about 4th edition. I remember having a gold deck that never won a thing, terrible balance issues, but was worth about $200 according to Wizard (the magazine). I loved the ante system, I loved winning and losing actual cards, to me that was what made the game really SOMETHING. I always had people who wanted to play me because I did lose more than I won, and I wasn't attached to the cards themselves, or even all that competitive when I played. I liked the community of playing, and the stakes made it thrilling. Then I suffered a theft and felt like a fool for having trusted the community. One bad apple, sort of thing. I gave a big middle finger to the game and sold my remaining worthless cards to a comic shop and was done with it. Until about 2008 when the game went digital. Played a very limited bit on my computer, started reading the MTG blog (fascinating), then sort of but not really started actually playing the game with humans: bought some cheap 10th Edition cards to teach to Japanese children and my own son (who loved it). Then moved on again, still in 2008. Haven't looked back. Like most hobbies it ends up being ridiculously expensive if you're serious, and in Japan it competes with so many other card games that even as the game that may have inspired them all, it feels something like a knockoff. I'd love to be in the USA to do some draft games, reading about those is exciting, it's got the community and the thrill of the old ante system, with winnable goods, and everyone opening new cards with no idea how things might play out in the following games. THAT's something. I really love that. If there were a platinum involved I would get the Planeswalkers games on PSN. Dabbled with it on Xbox 360 and enjoyed it. Not really the same though. Lacks the sloppy, friendly, human aspect.

2013-01-31 10:40:00 Author: Unknown User

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Only real competition this game has ever had though is Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pok?mon TCG, but even when it comes to those two, only in Japan. PS: The stuff in MTG Duels of the Planeswalkers gets real when you play a two-headed-giant match with friends, everyone having mics.

2013-01-31 21:22:00 Author: FreeAim Posts: 2462

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Weird question: I'm currently trying to build an Arachnid deck; does the new set have any spiders in it?

2013-02-03 19:01:00 Author: CyberSora Posts: 5551

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Not if I recall correctly. There is plenty in MTG 2013 and the Innistrad-block though.

2013-02-06 20:32:00 Author: FreeAim Posts: 2462

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Ahh, Magic the Gathering. Me and my friends used to play this quite a bit in middle school and high school. I was never really good at it. I was too dependable on a select few cards that cost a lot of mana and were easily defeated by other people's spells. My best friend was a genius at building his deck, though. He made it soldier themed, mostly white. Alone, his soldiers didn't do much, but he could deploy them faster than anyone could destroy them. And soldier type creatures have small little bonuses tht complement each other and make the "army" stronger and stronger as more appear. Of course it all went downhill after the Lorwyn pack. Wizards of the Coast tried to reinvent the wheel and suddenly they started to give out blatantly powerful cards like they were candy. People started to show up with planeswalkers, demigods and mythic cards and beat everyone. It killed the fun and drove most of the older players away. It always surprised me how popular Magic was in my old town. It's not like activities this nerdy are very popular there.

2013-02-07 12:00:00 Author: SnipySev Posts: 2452

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I'm not a fan of the planeswalkers but I feel Lorwyn did fine, I think most of the expansions do fine both in and out of the whatchamacallit, tournament legal format. I really am not a fan of the planeswalkers, though. Just too different a type of mechanic and not something I like cropping up in the core sets. It's easy enough to learn their rules and adjust, I just... something. I don't like planeswalkers on the table, in my hand, in the decks, etc. That's me as a casual fan though. And I've missed huge chunks of the game, a decade of expansions, etc., but I would imagine there were super overpowered cards in many expansions over time. I don't think there's a schitzophrenic design problem with MTG but I know the designers are thinking on multiple tiers when they create sets, and when push comes to shove I think they, as experts and longtime game developers, tend to favor the experts among the fans, so overpowered cards more or less are just faster ways of getting to things that experts figured out to achieve over the years with other cards. It's justifiable. Even game-breaking mechanics have crept back in, out of nostalgia and a desire to re-design them with other overpowered cards to nerf "game-breaking" down to merely "devastating". Which, I think, newcomers also love. And experts have no problem with newcomers slinging heavy duty overpowered cards, it inspires them to assemble craftier decks. Man... been a while... maybe I'll pop around the MTG shops this weekend and see where things are at. I need something to fill the void with my PS3 gone (sniffle)... The blog is always a fascinating read, maybe that's enough. What I really like is, the shops here will strip down past expansions and sell them in large sets, complete, for super cheap. I guess that probably happens everywhere though...

2013-02-07 14:01:00 Author: Unknown User

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Hey arbiekko, weren't you bummed like a year ago because your PS3 YLOD'ed or something? And now you had to sell it? Man, your luck stinks.

2013-02-07 14:44:00 Author: SnipySev Posts: 2452

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It crashed all the time, yeah. I had to replay a few games fully to 100%, particularly the LBP series. Fortunately the YLOD is much more fixable than the RROD, you can reset to factory settings quite easily instead of having to send it in or buy a new one. I could write a book about stinky luck in Japan but I would choose this life again and again and again over other countries. I love it here. Shame that cost of living is so expensive, and of course I would like it if gaming weren't such a ridiculous stab in the wallet. At least it's not as bad as Australia's prices...

2013-02-08 01:48:00 Author: Unknown User

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Of course it all went downhill after the Lorwyn pack. Wizards of the Coast tried to reinvent the wheel and suddenly they started to give out blatantly powerful cards like they were candy. People started to show up with planeswalkers, demigods and mythic cards and beat everyone. It killed the fun and drove most of the older players away. Yeah, planeswalkers are annoying at times, and all those buffs like reproducing are just ridiculous. Still, the game is fun and tourneys are still pretty cool to go to, so I'm not complaining much. My only real "complaint" is building decks. My friends are way better at it, but one of them made such an annoying deck we infamously called it "The Little Spirit Deck That Could". All it does is turtle and peck you to death, but I rage almost everything time because almost any deck we make is beaten by it, even supposedly OP ones (like poison and zombies).

2013-02-08 02:48:00 Author: CyberSora Posts: 5551

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Is "turtle" a special tactic/slang for MTG? I sometimes don't know if something is creative description or an actual tactic, like when someone gets "slivered".

2013-02-08 06:31:00 Author: Unknown User

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Looking through the set online (card kingdom for the win), I think that I am probably most excited for this card: http://www.cardkingdom.com/catalog/item/188859 That my friends is a near perfect card... it is stupidly cheap to put out and sucks, its a common, so it flies under the radar of people's concern, but every other creature you put out for like probably the next couple of turns is going to make it indefinitely stronger... that is my kind of card for sure: simple, badass, useful, but not unfair EDIT: ...Something could be said about this card as well... what a crazy thing for only one mana http://www.cardkingdom.com/catalog/item/189083

2013-02-09 17:20:00 Author: Alismadia Posts: 77

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This must be why the place I go to isn't holding any YuGiOh tornaments this week We normally play at the same time, the two groups chat a little and it's interesting to watch them play, but I've no clue what's going on and I don't think my life could comprehend two TCGs at once. Must admit though, this: My best friend was a genius at building his deck, though. He made it soldier themed, mostly white. Alone, his soldiers didn't do much, but he could deploy them faster than anyone could destroy them. And soldier type creatures have small little bonuses tht complement each other and make the "army" stronger and stronger as more appear. Sounds awesome, I wish there was a non-broken but still decent equivilent for YuGiOh.

2013-02-09 17:35:00 Author: kirbyman62 Posts: 1893

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Is "turtle" a special tactic/slang for MTG? I sometimes don't know if something is creative description or an actual tactic, like when someone gets "slivered". It's basically playing defensively. His deck is blue + white, so he Negates and Vapor Snag a lot, plus he has a bunch of defensive creatures that prevent attacks or attacks the player themselves. His white portion spawns tokens and has flying creatures, so he can either use them to block (again defensive), or just go straight for your health. They're low, though, so it has to peck you to death over time. As you can probably tell by now, it's really, really annoying to get around.

2013-02-09 20:57:00 Author: CyberSora Posts: 5551

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This must be why the place I go to isn't holding any YuGiOh tornaments this week We normally play at the same time, the two groups chat a little and it's interesting to watch them play, but I've no clue what's going on and I don't think my life could comprehend two TCGs at once. Must admit though, this: ~quote about the soldiers deck~ Sounds awesome, I wish there was a non-broken but still decent equivilent for YuGiOh. This in my opinion is what makes magic arguably one of the best table top games pretty much ever... there are essentially infinite combinations of things that you can do in magic these days, with 20 years worth of cards that come out in sets of 1 to 300ish cards 3 times a year that can all theoretically be combined with one another to make whatever story you can fathom. I specifically build unusual decks that take advantage of techniques and combinations that no one is anticipating, while coming up with a flavorful context to explain exactly how I am going to achieve checkmate.

2013-02-09 21:22:00 Author: Alismadia Posts: 77

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This in my opinion is what makes magic arguably one of the best table top games pretty much ever... there are essentially infinite combinations of things that you can do in magic these days, with 20 years worth of cards that come out in sets of 1 to 300ish cards 3 times a year that can all theoretically be combined with one another to make whatever story you can fathom. I specifically build unusual decks that take advantage of techniques and combinations that no one is anticipating, while coming up with a flavorful context to explain exactly how I am going to achieve checkmate. How good are these stratagies? Because I have a deck that I contsructed from scratch by myself on an obscure archtype that works pretty good, but there's no way it'd possibly keep up with tournament level decks. Do original decks still have a chance? That's the only thing that really annoys me about the game, the place I go to is cool and we all just use fun decks, but there's always those select few who think they're at Regionals or something and bring their stupid expensive deck.

2013-02-10 21:21:00 Author: kirbyman62 Posts: 1893

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How good are these stratagies? Because I have a deck that I contsructed from scratch by myself on an obscure archtype that works pretty good, but there's no way it'd possibly keep up with tournament level decks. Do original decks still have a chance? That's the only thing that really annoys me about the game, the place I go to is cool and we all just use fun decks, but there's always those select few who think they're at Regionals or something and bring their stupid expensive deck. When it comes down to it, the people who play with fun decks are the people who are honestly really into magic. The people who go all out to build a perfect legal tournament deck are either bored of making challenging decks, or do not have enough creativity to piece one together properly, and made their powerhouse deck out of spite... Obviously, this is not entirely true for everyone, especially people who play in tournaments all the time... but point being, if you can gather a few people who are all into making flavorful decks rather than perfect decks, thats when the game can truly open up to be really interesting. Ideally, for this kind of deck, I design it similar to a board of chess, where there a number of pawns, a few unusual and interesting pieces that work together in different ways to build up an interesting strategy (bishops and knights) and then you get a couple of crazy rare cards (rooks) and like one or two mythic rare (the king and queen)... once you have like three or four of these built up, then you can spend a whole afternoon with friends who have built decks with similar strategies and have endless unique games --> this is in my experience the best time you can have with this game... and the best part about these decks is that they are ripe for switching things out here and there when you find exciting new things... Also, try convincing your group of friends to make a deck or two entirely out of common cards... this is really hard to do well, but can in some instances be one of the more deadly strategies, plus its an interesting challenge in and of itself. Sometimes in the end though... you are just gonna get pwned by some dude with a deck that is made up of mostly uncommons, rares, and mythics, with like two plainswalkers in it.. and in those instances, you kind of just need to take it for what its worth and just let that game happen...

2013-02-11 09:47:00 Author: Alismadia Posts: 77

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