Magic: The Gathering

[Ulminati]

Yeh. Sand blast is a stable. White + 2 colorless. Deal 5 damage to target attacking or defending creature. It's a common

 

[Keldryn]

Man, even for old/casual play all I can think of is your opponent sitting there with a grin on his face as he casually taps a plains, Swords to Plowshares your vampire and gets a 3 for 1

I'm certain that he would have if he'd had those cards in his opening hand. Or if he had been playing white (I don't think that he was playing white, but we're talking close to 20 years ago). I've also been that player with the big smirk on his face who tapped a plains and cast Swords to Plowshares on a big creature that my opponent invested a lot of mana and/or cards into. I always really liked playing white cards in my decks.

It was a risk that paid off though, as my opponent wasn't able to cast a removal spell or even a flier to block with before I won on the third turn.

But none of us really understood the "science" of deck-building, and nobody in our circle thought in terms of "mana curves," "card advantage," "board state," or how much each additional card added to the deck reduces the probability of drawing the card you want/need at any given moment. Most of us played with 80-100 card decks stuffed with cards that we thought were cool. The games were unpredictable and fun. Except when playing against that guy who had a deck containing: a Black Lotus, all five Moxes, a Forcefield, Time Walk, and Ancestrall Recall.

I only played against him once, because he acted as though he won entirely due to his superior skill, and because he wouldn't actually put any of those cards in his deck. Owning a single Mox Pearl and then writing "Mox Pearl" on four different Plains so you can have a Mox Pearl in every deck feels like cheating to me. If you have expensive, powerful cards, fine, but if you won't put them in your deck and freak out if somebody else touches or even breathes on your precious cards, then I don't want to play with you.

I used to have 4+ copies of Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Onslaught fetches and a lot more back when Extended was a thing. Not beta duals, obviously, but somehow after I sold almost everything and stopped playing for a few years many cards went 500% up in price. I came back with Innistrad and been only playing limited and casual since.

Yeah, it's not surprising that a bunch of your cards went up that much in price after you sold them. On the other hand, more of them probably went down in price after you sold them, but that doesn't tend to grab one's attention the same way. I am quite certain that the stacks upon stacks of cards from The Dark and Fallen Empires that I sold at the same time are worth even less today. I couldn't get away from those Fallen Empires cards... I already had more than I knew what to do with, and then I placed 2nd in a (casual/amateur/unofficial) tournament at my university and my prize was about half a box of Fallen Empires booster packs. Umm, thanks...

I think that casual/kitchen table play is the most appealing to me, as I don't like the idea of having to buy a bunch of new cards every time sets rotate out. I want to use the cards that I have, but I'm not willing to spend the kind of money required to be competitive in the Modern format. Commander looks like a really good fit for me, actually.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

No, I'm talking tournament cards that had actual value, the rest was sold separately. Sure, some went down (Pithing Needle comes to minds), but generally there was a huge increase in tournament cards' prices between 2005-2010. Back in the day you could make a good extended deck for a fraction of what modern decks cost today. Even standard cards' prices blow my mind today when something like Master of Waves or Sorin can reach 10€.

 

[Phage]

No, I'm talking tournament cards that had actual value, the rest was sold separately. Sure, some went down (Pithing Needle comes to minds), but generally there was a huge increase in tournament cards' prices between 2005-2010. Back in the day you could make a good extended deck for a fraction of what modern decks cost today. Even standard cards' prices blow my mind today when something like Master of Waves or Sorin can reach 10€.

10 euros? Men, Sorin was sitting at $25 for like 2 months after launch!

 

[Ulminati]

Cards are a lot more expensive in the kwa than the EU though. People seem willing to pay more there.

 

[Phage]

Cards are a lot more expensive in the kwa than the EU though. People seem willing to pay more there.

Obligatory even our poor nerds are wealthier than euro citizens.

That out of the way..

Really? I mostly use tcgplayer.com to determine prices, any example of euro prices? If the difference is large enough, I figure that it would probably be profitable for people to just buy the cards overseas and swallow the shipping costs

 

[Jaedar]

magiccardmarket.eu is pretty good.

 

[Pope Amole II]

So this week is a FRF release week in the MTGO and, even though I'm no longer an active player, according to my tradition I've still played some drafts. Five, actually, all of them triple FRF - I love these wonky release-only formats, they're fun to play. Wasn't very lucky with draws so I've had two 3-0, two 1-1 and one miserable 0-1. Somehow, this stupid MTGO client have saved only 3 decks out of five. Ugh.

So this deck is kinda crappy (because, until pack 3, it was an UR but I've been passed few blue cards in the pack 2 and, after picking Citadel Siege & Mastery of the Unsees as 1&2 in the final pack, I've decided to risk switching white, especially since the signals for it in the P1 weren't that bad; it's just that they've appeared too late there and I was already deep into the UR plan), but it has a couple of bombs and, most importantly, is capable of great burst damage. Which, in turn, is good because it helps you to capitalize on your opponent's mistakes and, well, during the release times lots of not so experienced players log in so yeah.

And that's how it went to 3-0 - either on the back of the rares or just by sudden "tap - can't block - 3 to the face" combos finishing the way too greedy foes.

That's also a bit meh because I was drafting it while multi-queuing and, well, I'm not in the shape to do that crap. Still did a 1-1 and it really lost to drawing the 10 or so lands in the third game of a second round.

Going 1-1 with this one was annoying as fuck. Because it was mull to 5 in the first one against a 3 color aggro - opp had lots of tap lands mixed with aggressive curve with tons of low toughness creatures. Pretty much nothing but food for us but, as I've said, mull to five in the first one, easy win in the second, 12 lands in the third one. I've absolutely stabilized situation and would've won if it was at least 11 lands, but no, just drawing blank after blank after blank.

Remaining two decks was another UG (which I went 0-1 with also due to the flood, though the deck could've been better) and an insane BG with a crapload of rare bombs - Tasigur, another Temur War Shaman, Warden of the First Tree, Wildform, Sandsteppe Mastodon. Managed to overcome not 1, but 2 different Palace Sieges in that one, in three games - raced two in the lifedrain mode and won the stalemate game simply by timing my opponent out; sure, I couldn't have broken through his defences, but same applied to him and he wasted too much time on multi-queuing or I dunno so serves him right)

 

[Keldryn]

Man does that MGTO client make the cards look absolutely hideous.

 

[Dreaad]

The entire MTGO client is shit. Not being able to zoom in and look at the artwork is so far down the list of problems no one even cares anymore. With every new set release they somehow manage to break old cards codding. Not to mention how they then don't fix said problems, but instead ban the card for several weeks instead. The lag, terrible interface and it goes on and fucking on. Fucking worst support team ever. I remember one time I was trying to report a bug and the "staff" told me I should go online, make a wizards's account and post it in that forum.
I was like isn't the point of support staff to do things like report bugs and shit. Or at the very least can't I use my magic account to post. Nope, has to be a wizards's account.


Seriously only game I have ever rage quit in and almost threw my laptop out the window in frustration. Shame too cause the actual TCG is great stuff.

 

[Keldryn]

Sounds like it was probably a good thing that new account registration won't work for me. I tried to set up an account a couple of weeks ago, but it wouldn't go beyond the second screen. After filling in all of my personal info, I was unable to click "Continue." Tried it in Firefox, Chrome, and IE, and it wouldn't work on any of them. I Googled the problem, and people were reporting having the same issue two years ago, with the offical tech response being along the lines of "it works for most people, so it's a problem on your computer, try doing something different."

Hey, if you don't want me to buy your product, by all means keep up what you're doing guys. After reading some more about it, I'm not going to bother. Looks like the entire MGTO client needs to be more or less rewritten from the ground up.

 

[Jaesun]

I had no problems signing up...

 

[Ulminati]

Neither did I.

MTGO client is held together with thumbtacks and elmers glue though. It mostly works, but you have to remember to restart it just before you enter a paid event. Reduces the chance of the thing crashing mid-event. And if it does crash, be sure to contact support. They will usually reimburse you the entry fee and let you keep winnings on top.

 

[Jaedar]

I have a question about MTGO. Since drafting old sets with real cardboard is insanely expensive, I've started thinking about getting mtgo for this purpose. How easy is it to draft old sets in mtgo, and how expensive? I think I've heard that you can only do it during certain time periods?

 

[Keldryn]

I had no problems signing up...

I was able to do it on my computer at home without any issues. Against my better judgement, but $10 is a pretty trivial amount. If I get a couple hours of entertainment out of it, it's not a loss.

Couldn't do it on my work PC (not because of anything restricted on our end), no matter which browser I used. And as I said, I did a search and found the same complaint coming up in threads dated 2012.

I find myself wishing for a modern version of this game:

Duels of the Planeswalkers wishes it was this game.

 

[Jaesun]

Oh fuck yes! Duels of the Planeswalkers was AWESOME <3 <3 I still have all my CD's of that. It would be awesome if they did do something like that again.

But they won't.

 

[procrastinator]

I find myself wishing for a modern version of this game:

There is Manalink, which is basically the same game with an improved AI and most of the new cards modded in. The only problem is that it crashes occasionally.

Oh, and last time I've played it (~2 years ago) AI kept sacrificing his whole board to Arcbound Ravager Hopefully it's fixed by now.

 

[Keldryn]

There is Manalink, which is basically the same game with an improved AI and most of the new cards modded in. The only problem is that it crashes occasionally.

Oh, and last time I've played it (~2 years ago) AI kept sacrificing his whole board to Arcbound Ravager Hopefully it's fixed by now.

Cool, I'll have to check that out. Does it contain the world map and exploration mode as well? I looked for some screenshots, but all I could find were shots of the duels.

 

[procrastinator]

Duels only.

 

[Keldryn]

Duels only.

Sigh. I was really hoping for the whole game.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Men

Any recommendations for protectors to use for double sleeving?

 

[Keldryn]

Men

Any recommendations for protectors to use for double sleeving?

I'd go with Trojan or Durex. Stay away from cheaper brands, as they might tear during "competitive" play.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Megamorph.

Jeez...it's like Wizards isn't even trying at this point.

 

[Jaedar]

Megamorph.

Jeez...it's like Wizards isn't even trying at this point.

Yeah, thoroughly disappointing.

Rebound and exploit seem nice though, I just hope they print some decent cards for the former.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Yeah, thoroughly disappointing.

You get a name like MEGAMORPH and the mechanic is nothing but Morph with an additional +1/+1 counter? Weak. Megamorph N would have been better, where the creature gains N +1/+1 counter if flipped face up via the Megamorph ability. That way they could have made some more interesting cards. Cards like a cheap weenie creature with a high Megamorph cost that make it into a lategame threat are a given; Llanowar Elite type of cards have always been designed and always make for interesting picks in Limited.

Even more interesting design space is possible, where Megamorphing might not be a good thing in all cases. For example, certain cards could have gained Defender with their Megamorph'd P/T. with the Megamorph cost cheaper than the casting cost, making for more interesting lines of play in some games; do you morph it to be a Defender for cheap, keep it as a vanilla 2/2, or cast it regularly?

Plus, the hypothetical Megamorph N could play really well with Morph Flip effects that were drawbacks. Imagine a really cheap Megamorph that would produce a gargantuan creature, but perhaps causes the player to sacrifice many or all of their lands when flipped. I can imagine some sort of Black demon (well, Rakshasa in Tarkir) that oozes with flavor like this; get 3/3 for 3B or Megamorph 5 for 3B plus sacrificing all your lands when it flips...cool shit. But Megamorph as it stands is ill-suited to this sort of interesting design. One +1/+1 counter really isn't that big a difference in most cases.

Rebound and exploit seem nice though, I just hope they print some decent cards for the former.

I like seeing decent mechanics get recycled. Rebound could definitely do more than it did in Rise of the Eldrazi, and was a hoot in Limited, making for interesting pick evaluations, at least early in the format.

Exploit will definitely depend on support. So far we've seen a Legendary creature with, essentially, an attached Diabolic Intent for 3BB. Not terribly impressed. What will make or break this mechanic is how well supported it is in the lower rarities, not only via direct presence (i.e. permanents with the mechanic) but "support" cards like token producers and cards that play well with it (e.g. UB Enchantment: Whenever you exploit a creature, draw a card).