Magic, The Gathering

[SpaceYeti]

So I played Magic in early high school, back in the days of Ice Age and Mirage and 4 and fifth edition. My friends and I fell out of playing, but the game persisted. Almost 20 years later, I find myself playing again. Now that I'm not a broke-ass high school freshman, I can actually afford not only booster packs (and, thus, get rares), I can afford to buy specific rares online. It's cool being able to make competative decks. While the best deck I've made so far I would rate only about a 6 on actual competitiveness in tournaments, I'm not stuck with just a bunch of commons. My decks can actually do pretty cool stuff.

Granting, I did have one combo I was really proud of back then. Hallucinatory Terrain combined with whatever black card it was that dealt damage to players for each swamp they controlled was nice. It also required that I had a few swamps, but I tossed in some white to mitigate my own damage and it was okay. It always took a long time to set up, though.

Now, however, I can afford to make my decks however I desire. I have a rule about never paying more than five dollars for a single card, but besides that, it feels nice having effective decks. I continue having the problem of the meat of my deck being mid to late game effectiveness, though. I know how to make decks effective right off the bat, but raw effectiveness doesn't tend to be the most fun. Fun is the point, so I try to just survive long enough for the fun whatever thing the deck is made to do.

Who else here plays?

 

[Oedipus]

I play a little but I normally am not in the mood to play this sort of thing so it's only in short bursts. But those bursts are fun. I'm planning on getting more into it when I go back to uni.

 

[Brontosaurie]

i like to think "the gathering" as "the movie", you know like:

... damn now i can't think of any "the movie"s....

anyway is that what's nice about the name?

 

[Oedipus]

I remember in my last game I really messed up my opponent's shit because I ended up with a couple of grisly spectacles and crypt incursion, which is quite cool. He likes to bring things out of the graveyard so having a bunch of stuff exiled wasn't that fun.

 

[Pyropyro]

I only played Magic the Gathering: Shandalar PC game. It's kind of hard to find IRL players here.

I'm more of a Green gamer and like to hit the other guy with a bunch of little monsters.

 

[Nick]

I have a bunch of friends that still play, I played from 4th-9th, Urza block was my favorite cause thats when I was coming of age and understanding the stack and creating my own decks.

I'll do some sealed drafts with friends maybe once a year, 1box and 6-8 people, just to play and have fun.

 

[Hadoblado]

I hear they scrapped the stack (My single favourite part of MTG; a truly elegant system).

I find myself wanting to play every now and then, but I would be playing with a similar $5 rule, and that simply won't get you to competitive level. I don't think it's necessary for all people to play at a competitive level, but a large part of my motive to play is to compete. When it can cost $80+ just to get four copies of one land type, and most decks need 10-20 rare lands, the buy-in for competition is too high, particularly when the set will cycle leaving your investment redundant.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

The stack is fine, the mechanic is in place (As far as the last fnm).
There are pauper competitive formats. They use commons exclusively and there are quite big tournaments with them too, at least in this part of the world (you could always find it online).
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/pauper
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/resources.aspx?x=magic/rules/pauper

 

[Hadoblado]

Oooops my mistake, that's good to hear (about the stack).

Pauper is fun, and there are plenty of interesting commons around, but where I live it's only thought of as a casual format. I could make something happen if I really wanted to, but there are other things to play that don't require that effort or investment.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

I forgot about the immortal booster draft format.

Draft is very competitive and it's staged on pro tour and GP arenas.
You need 9$ (The cost of three booster packs) and three more people to play it. Total cost of the game is around 36$. You also need lands to fill your manabase after you assemble the deck, however lands can be borrowed and are a one-time investment.

Usually the winnings are distributed so that the winner picks cards from the play pool after the games first. So that one can select the most expensive and the most needed cards(Playing draft allows you to gather some cards for other formats, such as modern or legacy and definitely pauper. I'm a modern player and I have had a few useful cards following the past drafts). If you play draft from booster boxes you have a constant guarantee of mythic rares and rares and depending on your agreement, if you win it could be profitable.

If you intend to play on larger regional stages you should read about draft and whatever requirements they have. Usually you need to pay the participation fees which are beyond 5$.

As to the format itself it's different from other setups as you get to create your deck from a limited and random card pool, that can be a great and equalising game. Simply what's left is strategy and chance.

Another interesting formats that are less popular involve cube.

Also nothing stops you from shuffling all the cards everyone has and making a draft from it.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Isn't Paupers commons and uncommons?

Also; https://spaceyeti.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/deck-v-deck-weenie-v-plus-ones/

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Isn't Paupers commons and uncommons?

Also; https://spaceyeti.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/deck-v-deck-weenie-v-plus-ones/

No pauper is all historical commons, quick reference for formats.

For example in pauper standard, only commons from the last three blocks are legal.

 

[SpaceYeti]

So I have a deck I'm calling "Genesis Forge" for now. It's a Green/Red Enters-the-Battlefield deck and, historically, it sucks. It takes too long to build up the momentum necessary for it's survival. However, it was a really fun deck to play. I odered a few cards to improve it slightly, added some mana ramp and a few bigger creatures. Now, my playtests have it beating my best deck every time. It still takes a minute to get ready, and is basically defenseless in the first handful of rounds, but as long as it survives those rounds, it builds up enough momentum to steamroll my other decks.

Here's the thing; While I'm happy the deck is actually effective, I'd probably like it almost as much even if it weren't. It's just a FUN deck. Who else cares more about the deck being fun than actually winning?

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Who else cares more about the deck being fun than actually winning?

I built a modern lifegain control angel deck for modern. I really like some of the artwork and flavour it brought. Spent quite some time in the process and while I can win with most tier 1 decks, I won't be as efficient as they are with their 1-3 mana curve.

It has Entreat the angels and Iona, Shield of Emeria, both cards I love and my opponents hate, there are some other mechanics like sideboarding leyline of anticipation and playing turn 2 Serra Avenger, etc.

It's quite a luck based deck, but after hundreds of playtesting with other people and online it performs decently for a stylish / not-optimised for winning deck.

As to the optimisations, I see only 50 viable cards that can be used without compromising on speed, which in modern means winning by turn 4-5 consistently or preventing the opponent from doing so indefinitely.

I tend to play mine as control / ramp, where I hold them off with wrath of god or porphyry nodes and then either become indestructible or prevent their spells from being cast.

I don't really have much time to play and I have other pursuits, it may be my last deck that I would have built in this stage of life, maybe I will focus on it later when both finances and freedom would be different.