Magic: The Gathering

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Thu May 05, 2005 1:59 am

I was just wondering if any of you plays Magic. I used to play a lot, usually one tournament a week, but due to other things in my life, Magic fell a bit short in the last couple of months. So, am I the only one here who is crazy enough to spend a lots of money on little pieces of cardboard, or are there more?

Post by **PaulH** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:03 am

I used to play a little bit of Warhammer: lots of money on little bits of plastic and lead.

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:09 am

At least the miniatures are not in such great danger of getting damaged, so one could argue that they are the better deal compared to playing cards. However, I never tried any of those games, though I guess I might like them.

Post by **PaulH** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:17 am

Oooh, you ought to try standing on one with bare feet...

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:31 am

That is the revenge for paying so much for something so small.

When you stand on an expensive Magic card with bare feet, all you do is cry because the smell won't go away and you can't trade that card anymore...

Post by **Ameena** » Thu May 05, 2005 2:47 am

I got a couple of boxes of cards and had a couple of games with my dad and sister (I think) but that was about it. They're still upstairs in my room somewhere. I don't really know anyone in RL who's into any kind of Fantasy game like that (would be interseted to see what a tabletop game of DnD is really like...), which is a bummer really

.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Fri May 06, 2005 3:13 am

Yeah, I played, started at the tail end of secondary school, carried on into university - there was a guy who managed to collect the entire 4th edition, thansk to me swapping him the collosus and soemthign else...

Also played Epicin secondary for a while, but took too long to play! Thoguh was cool - sold both the above recently on e-bay...bye bye childhood!

Toni Y · Post by **Toni Y** » Sat May 07, 2005 8:24 pm

I used to play Magic long ago... Egads, really long ago - 5-6 years

Still have two intact decks and rest of my cards packed in a box somewhere.

4th ed, 5th ed and thereabouts. Sets ranging from Legends to Stonghold...

Florent · Post by **Florent** » Sun May 08, 2005 8:53 pm

Yup used to play a while ago, still got my collection which I would like to sell off (Revised, 4th, The Dark, Fallen Empires, complete Chronicles collection, that's about it)...

sucinum · Post by **sucinum** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 6:31 pm

i used to, too, mostly around revised to 6th. i quit after urza and the stupid tolarian-decks. still got my deck and i enjoy the pc-adventure shandalar very much sometimes (completed it several times and wrote a strategie-guide for it, see my website).

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 12:25 am

Antman, do you play Magic? Or is it just a coincidence that somebody else has the same nickname as you? Check this out (scroll down a bit):

http://www.pojo.com/magic/COTD/2005/June/03.shtml

Antman · Post by **Antman** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:34 am

I did play magic ages ago, got loads of cards stashed away in a closet somewhere, but no thats not me. The only place where i use Antman as a nickname is here for some reason.

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 2:36 am

I just picked up a liking for the game about two years ago (durring Mirrodin's block) from a fellow sailor friend and have since spent loads of money on the cards. That friend has since left the navy and moved away from San Diego so I've been left with nobody to playtest any of my decks against. Never even been to any tournaments. I haven't done anything with the Magic Online thing either, so I don't really know how good I am, or how good my decks are.

Adamo · Post by **Adamo** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 1:23 pm

few years ago I was collecting cards and I had a lot of them, most of them (99%) black (swamp). I played a bit with friends (not on the tournaments - besides I was too unexperienced and I doubt if there were tournaments in Poland in that time), but I gave up. I think colours weren`t well balanced and if there`s, say, 5 persons, each playing different colour, there`s 3/4 probability, that wins a player who played green (forest)..

well, that was few years ago, I don`t know about all those new expansion sets, maybe now MTH is better balanced.

@Christopher: I bet there`s a LOT of people in San Diego plaing these cards. Search the announcements on the net. How much people live in San Diego? 10 years ago I found a lot of people playing it in my city (Poznan), wchich isn`t big.

However, congrats to Trant for a good position in a Germany tournament!!!

Simon · Post by **Simon** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 1:46 pm

I was a warhammer gamer and I got into the MTG scene a bit later than most. I loved it though, I also loved shandalar and apprentice.

However it's fucked up now beyond all belief with so many new editions that it's impossible to formulate a deck strategy, and most of my cards, nay my entire deck, was made obselete.

simaton · Post by **simaton** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 6:26 pm

I've had a dream to own a playset (four) of every magic card ever made (don't care which set) so that I could make any deck I want.

When Chronicles came out, I was initially concerned about cards' value degrading with reprinting.

When Fallen Empires came out I was concerned that the game I loved would be ruined by stupid planning.

Over the years I have become convinced that the company is handling reprints and new sets with astounding good judgment. I've decided to enjoy every new set, adapt my play to them, and never get too set on the way the game is played at a certain time.

I love the game and wish more people in Utah played it.

- Simaton

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:38 pm

I think that very evolution is what pushed old players away from the game. We hated having to adapt to new cards that basically did what had previously taken us two or three cards to achieve. Buying new cards never really bothered anyone because we were always looking for more variety, but we were concerned about value, and indeed the value of many cards depreciated drastically with every reprint. For collectors, it made black borders more valuable than ever because they held a smaller percentage of the market, but players would never shell that kind of money for something they could get cheap in a starter deck, so the real value dropped like a rock.

I was also frustrated when they started making duplicate prints with different pictures because it only served to confuse players who hadn't seen all three/four/eight-hundred variants of the same card. This idiotic trend started with Fallen if I'm not mistaken and carried through to other editions.

I think the idea behind the game is absolutely brilliant. The fact that it became so popular so quickly really speaks for its design, and it has very high collection and trade values. The problem is that it turned into the Wal-mart of trading card games, and that ruined it for all the old-schoolers. There will never be a drop in the influx of Magic players, but the game isn't the same anymore. It belongs to a new generation now.

My greatest memory of Magic was when some friends and I turned Magic into a strategy game. We set up a Battle Masters map and placed lands on it, two per hex. We then took turns moving our avatars across the map — we had each chosen a particular creature as our avatar, based on its casting cost, and we had special rules for its behavior — taking over lands and dueling with each other. It was rather ingenious, if I'm allowed that much audacity. I'd play Magic again in a second if we used those rules. Unfortunately, we never shared that particular event with anyone, and that's probably why it never became popular. Had WotC heard of our makeshift strategy game, I'm sure they would have marketed a variant. "Use your existing Magic cards! Free starter deck included!" would have been the major selling point for what was essentially a plastic Battle Masters mat and eight-page rulebook, for about thirty dollars.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:20 pm

My bets M:tG memory was when I first started playing it...well, ish (we had alot of cards but still atcually played infrequently) My friend and I decided to just put in all the cards and have a mammoth session - we are talking decks of like 200 multi-coloured cards. fun waiting for ages too get the correct lands and being swmaped by not enough lands or too much!

Anywya, he used somehting - I forget what - that allowed him to bury library cards to power the spell up for a single shot kill at me./ So he poured 140 cards into the shot, happy that he was blue and I wasn't so no counterspell ability at that time. I reversed damage the whole thing and that was pretty much game conceeded right there

Chaos-Shaman · Post by **Chaos-Shaman** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:58 am

Magic, what a wonderful game! , i have thousands of cards, don't play anymore because it causes to much trouble, i collected all of 4th edition and some others, i even held tourneys at my home. Whats's your favourite card?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 9:08 am

Reverse Damage, Ivory Tower, and I always held a special place in my heart for the Fallen Angel and Sengier Vampire, even though I usually could not use Segnie to his ful advantage.

I could never get a white/black deck proprly balanced, but always liked the potential of turning all those crap black cards into killed combos, like spitit linking a banshee (so you get the points back for the damage it does to you AND the points it tims someone else for, etc)

Chaos-Shaman · Post by **Chaos-Shaman** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 6:02 pm

cool, i never had much luck with an angel deck, but it does work sometimes. there is a new angel that if attack is not blocked, they skip the attack phase, i found reverse damage hard to cast in a multicolour deck. i love the spirit link, one of my top ten for sure. am icy manipulator is a great card too. i use all my cards, no limit on editions so type 1 i play mostly, sure wish i had a black lotus

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:52 am

My favorite card was Creature Bond because of the picture.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:35 am

I'm trying not to sound old and one track minded when I say 'wasn't that the one with the hot woman on it?'

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 7:00 am

My favorite (land) card is Cabal Coffers. I just can't own enough copies of that card.
Black: Diabolic Tutor
Blue: Eye of the Storm
Green: Defense of the Heart
Red: Goblin Sharpshooter
White: Avatar of Hope
Legend: Captain Sisay
Multicolor: Decimate
Artifact: Soul Foundry

Chaos-Shaman · Post by **Chaos-Shaman** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:48 pm

i've been out of the game for a while, i don't know some of those cards.
i think one of the most trickiest useful cards is
- force of will, i've stopped many a plan with it

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:18 pm

Best card to use when they least expect it: Spore Cloud.

I'm presently breaking down the process of making a network version of Magic that you don't have to pay to play. At first I was going to use a VM similar to what I had in mind for Dungeon Shock, but now I'm thinking of going with VBScript because, well, it's already done. Anyway, I'm looking over the collection of cards and trying to figure out class and data structures. I'll let you know if anything comes of it. Some of my friends are interested, and that's reason enough to move forward.

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:23 pm

There was a freeware called Apprentice that floated around a few years back. Maybe it still does.

Trantor · Post by **Trantor** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 2:46 pm

Yes, Apprentice still exists. The most popular tool for playing Magic for free right now, however, is called Magic Workstation. Also, there is something called GCCG, and there may be others as well.

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:52 pm

Thanks for the heads up. Magic Workstation is functional but extremely utilitarian, and it seems like the card rules are up to the player, not the cards themselves. I want something more like Magic the Duel, but with support for more than two players. MWS also uses post-Portal rules, which I don't like. I'm from the old school, and I prefer pre-Portal sets and rules. However, I do like the fact that there's a NetRunner set for it . . . but again, the lack of enforced rules bothers me.

Your wiles have not swayed my grand purpose, Bwa ha.

Strider · Post by **Strider** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 3:26 pm

Anyone play this online? It's great, if you don't mind paying hard cash for digital cards.