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I'd like to preface this blog by letting everyone know that I played my first actual game of Magic about two weeks ago. I realize that my experience with the game is still very limited but I'll try my best to analyze things as "objectively" as I can (by TL blog standards...)
A couple of weeks ago, a few friends were playing M:TG at my place (usually we just play Dominion, but they wanted to try out a few of their new decks) but this time instead of browsing TL for a few minutes I decided to watch what was going on a little more closely. I always knew Magic was a competitive game but it seemed so daunting to get in to, yet I decided to ask my friends how I could learn to be decent at the game and they suggested that I go and buy one of those intro deck builder packs so I could play with them the next time. The next day, I drove down to the nearest department store and scurried down to the card aisle -- bringing back many memories from when I used to buy pokemon or yugioh cards as a kid. I was actually surprised when I felt that familiar excitement/satisfaction as I walked out of the store with the unopened cards. Perhaps I had just stumbled upon a new long-term hobby, or maybe I would luck out and get some really valuable cards, or maybe I was going to get REALLY good at this game. In any case, I couldn't wait to go home and start figuring this all out.
So by this point I still didn't really understand anything more than the basic rules of the game, never mind how to construct a deck -- but I just decided to wing it and throw together the cards that seemed the most OP with each other. By the end of the night I had a couple of 60-card piles sorted out, a red-green deck with some burns, werewolves, and a primordial hydra; a black/white exalted deck; and a weird hodge-podge of some spirit creatures and removal spells (my "experimental deck"). My friend with the most Magic experience out of our group came by the next day to check them out and play some games and he seemed pretty impressed that I came up with some viable starting decks on my first try. I had a lot of fun playing and figuring out where the weaknesses/strengths of my deck were, and so later that week we headed down to the card shop to pick up some more cards.
So far, I was having a blast learning this new game and as a competitive gamer it was only natural that I started to investigate the pro/competitive M:TG scene.
I'll digress for a moment since this kind of marks the transition of my mindset as casual/social to more of a learning/competitive one. I usually always have some kind of competitive or skill-based hobby that I'm actively training at, whether it's SC2 or online poker or playing guitar. For the time being I've taken a short break from those things so it seemed normal and exciting for me to go all-out in learning M:TG. I mostly viewed it as just an interesting challenge to see how good I could actually get if I spent my summer focusing on this game above other games. It's a reasonable presumption for any skill-based activity that if you spend a sufficient amount of time practicing and learning, your skills will improve. In Magic, the core skillsets are knowing the card pool, having actual game-playing skills (reactions, noticing combos, ordering spells, bluffing, etc), and knowing how to build and refine a deck. So to start things out I did what seemed obvious to me -- I studied all the card lists for the M13 and RTR block sets. Before long I was running practice drafts (not the games themselves, but just the card-selection process) and making an account on Magic Online.
After the first few rounds online, it seemed like I was on the fast-track to getting decent at Magic. One of my college friends used to play Magic at a very high level and he was nice enough to watch me stream and give me tips and suggestions during my games. I won most of my new player drafts and immediately started grinding the phantom sealed events which are cheap swiss-style tournaments where you don't get to keep any of the cards (hence, a "phantom" event) but you can still win a decent # of boosters. It seemed like the most cost-effective way to train because even though there is variance in the game of Magic it isn't too hard to go 2-1 in an event.
Most competitive activities have some kind of barriers to entry. I used to play lacrosse as a kid and the amount of money my family spent for all of that equipment was pretty crazy. Even with SC2, you have to buy a computer, an internet connection, peripherals, the game, etc just to be able to compete. The thing is, once you put down that initial investment then the rest is up to you and there are no more significant advantages gained by dropping more money (not counting private lessons). With Magic, it's an entirely different story with some formats being much worse than others. The constructed formats require at least $100 for a deck that's even remotely competitive. Noticing this, I tried to stick with the draft/sealed formats since they only require a few boosters (usually $4-12 per event) and seemed to be a more reasonable way to grind out some experience. So for the next week, I kept practicing until it hit me -- my mistakes were actually costing me a lot of money. I lost several games due to the interface being clunky, several more to misunderstandings (Tajic can't be removed with a supreme verdict!??) and some... getting MANASCREWED.
OK Erik, you're probably thinking. All of that is part of the process of getting better, right? Just suck it up and keep playing, and you'll make less of those mistakes in the future. Well my dear reader, let me put it this way. Let's pretend that you're a total noob at SC2 (only played the campaigns or something) and I give you my account which has a MMR in high masters. And for the sake of argument, the MMR doesn't move, you only get to play vs other high masters players. Oh and also, every time you lose then you also lose $4-12. And just for funsies, every now and then when you spawn you're not allowed to build your first pylon until 3 minutes into the game. Doesn't that sound great?
Of course I'm exaggerating a bit, but my point is that there's no real way to work up the ranks in online magic. Sure, I've heard people suggest that new players need to go to FNM sessions and beg the local pros to let you glimpse at their super-decks for inspiration. I've read the arguments over the EV differences between 4-3-2-2, 8-4, and swiss payouts. But I haven't read anything that actually explains how a total noob can start grinding his way to the top without dropping serious dollars just to practice the friggin' game. And it's a huge shame IMO because I think it probably really hurts the legitimacy of the pro-scene when it's virtually impossible for new blood to enter the competitive landscape. The level of variance that is automatically in the game doesn't help either, especially when everyone is so keen on best of threes. Maybe I just haven't been playing the game for long enough, but I've been mana screwed enough times in the last few weeks to know that a bo3 is not nearly enough to consistently outplay an opponent especially if you get hard countered in game 1 and need to make some sideboard switches in game 2. I used to play online poker quite a bit back when Pokerstars was around in the US so I'm not gonna bitch about variance, but at least in poker you could chose to play $.01/.02 tables so you could practice reading player stats and shoving all-in without draining your bank account.
Anyway, I think I've rambled on enough about all this. All in all, I think I'll continue playing M:TG in person with friends, but definitely with a much more casual mindset. Although I had a glimmer of hope for competitive magic, especially through MTGO, I just don't want to keep spending money to practice the game. I know I can do practice drafts for free all day and play with those gold-bordered cards but that almost seems like an SC2 player trying to practice his macro in team mono-battles.
Or maybe I'm just completely wrong and I've been approaching it in a stupid way. If so, please let me know as I really do still love the game 
 
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United States24680 Posts
I'm pretty much in the same boat, except I have an advantage over you.
I started playing about 4 weeks ago. Each weekend I go to a friend's and play some casual format with 4 or 5 other people. I also started going to a local store and doing booster drafts with one of the friends. Finally, I've played somewhat online.
The casual group format is good because you can try out decks without spending money or stressing about winning/losing. However, strategy for 1v1 is of course fairly different. The booster drafts in person are good because you are acquiring the cards for only a little more than you would if you bought them straight out, and then you get to play in a tournament and possibly win other prizes on top of it.
I had the same problems as you did online. I was doing m13 swiss booster drafts and eventually had most of the m13 cards, so I traded with bots and completed the m13 set and exchanged (redeemed) the digital set for a physical set which is in the mail coming to me right now. I don't think I'm going to do this with the Ravnica block for the reasons you mentioned earlier, and also because the redemption fee is much greater starting with Gatecrash, I believe.
Make sure to check out the magic the gather online thread in sports and games if you want to discuss it more with people who are familiar with it.
edit: btw Primordial Hydra is sick; here it is for people who don't know (M12 version but it was reprinted for M13):
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If you don't like spending money, MTG is definitely not a game for you lol. Maybe its different now with the widespread adoption of the internet.
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On June 03 2013 14:17 micronesia wrote:I'm pretty much in the same boat, except I have an advantage over you. I started playing about 4 weeks ago. Each weekend I go to a friend's and play some casual format with 4 or 5 other people. I also started going to a local store and doing booster drafts with one of the friends. Finally, I've played somewhat online. The casual group format is good because you can try out decks without spending money or stressing about winning/losing. However, strategy for 1v1 is of course fairly different. The booster drafts in person are good because you are acquiring the cards for only a little more than you would if you bought them straight out, and then you get to play in a tournament and possibly win other prizes on top of it. I had the same problems as you did online. I was doing m13 swiss booster drafts and eventually had most of the m13 cards, so I traded with bots and completed the m13 set and exchanged (redeemed) the digital set for a physical set which is in the mail coming to me right now. I don't think I'm going to do this with the Ravnica block for the reasons you mentioned earlier, and also because the redemption fee is much greater starting with Gatecrash, I believe. Make sure to check out the magic the gather online thread in sports and games if you want to discuss it more with people who are familiar with it. edit: btw Primordial Hydra is sick; here it is for people who don't know (M12 version but it was reprinted for M13):
Lemme just say that if your'e playing with other people irl you gotta try playing big FFA games sometime. When I used to play with some dudes we would play like 4-5 player FFA's and they're friggen awesome! We added some misc. rules like you can only attack the people sitting directly next to you and you can't attack a player 2x in a row. It helped prevent ganging and other lame shit.
Also: that card is insane.
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United States24680 Posts
On June 03 2013 16:03 Shebuha wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 14:17 micronesia wrote:I'm pretty much in the same boat, except I have an advantage over you. I started playing about 4 weeks ago. Each weekend I go to a friend's and play some casual format with 4 or 5 other people. I also started going to a local store and doing booster drafts with one of the friends. Finally, I've played somewhat online. The casual group format is good because you can try out decks without spending money or stressing about winning/losing. However, strategy for 1v1 is of course fairly different. The booster drafts in person are good because you are acquiring the cards for only a little more than you would if you bought them straight out, and then you get to play in a tournament and possibly win other prizes on top of it. I had the same problems as you did online. I was doing m13 swiss booster drafts and eventually had most of the m13 cards, so I traded with bots and completed the m13 set and exchanged (redeemed) the digital set for a physical set which is in the mail coming to me right now. I don't think I'm going to do this with the Ravnica block for the reasons you mentioned earlier, and also because the redemption fee is much greater starting with Gatecrash, I believe. Make sure to check out the magic the gather online thread in sports and games if you want to discuss it more with people who are familiar with it. edit: btw Primordial Hydra is sick; here it is for people who don't know (M12 version but it was reprinted for M13): Lemme just say that if your'e playing with other people irl you gotta try playing big FFA games sometime. When I used to play with some dudes we would play like 4-5 player FFA's and they're friggen awesome! We added some misc. rules like you can only attack the people sitting directly next to you and you can't attack a player 2x in a row. It helped prevent ganging and other lame shit. Also: that card is insane.
FFA is our main format, and we do sometimes to uphill or downhill. We also use planeswalker cards and character cards and whatnot. Yeah it's fun, although we don't put many limitations... only house rule I can think of is you get a free mulligan, plus additional mulligans are free if they are true (either 0 land or all land).
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On June 03 2013 16:03 Shebuha wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 14:17 micronesia wrote:I'm pretty much in the same boat, except I have an advantage over you. I started playing about 4 weeks ago. Each weekend I go to a friend's and play some casual format with 4 or 5 other people. I also started going to a local store and doing booster drafts with one of the friends. Finally, I've played somewhat online. The casual group format is good because you can try out decks without spending money or stressing about winning/losing. However, strategy for 1v1 is of course fairly different. The booster drafts in person are good because you are acquiring the cards for only a little more than you would if you bought them straight out, and then you get to play in a tournament and possibly win other prizes on top of it. I had the same problems as you did online. I was doing m13 swiss booster drafts and eventually had most of the m13 cards, so I traded with bots and completed the m13 set and exchanged (redeemed) the digital set for a physical set which is in the mail coming to me right now. I don't think I'm going to do this with the Ravnica block for the reasons you mentioned earlier, and also because the redemption fee is much greater starting with Gatecrash, I believe. Make sure to check out the magic the gather online thread in sports and games if you want to discuss it more with people who are familiar with it. edit: btw Primordial Hydra is sick; here it is for people who don't know (M12 version but it was reprinted for M13): Lemme just say that if your'e playing with other people irl you gotta try playing big FFA games sometime. When I used to play with some dudes we would play like 4-5 player FFA's and they're friggen awesome! We added some misc. rules like you can only attack the people sitting directly next to you and you can't attack a player 2x in a row. It helped prevent ganging and other lame shit.
EDH is a fun format too, but well it's mostly for people that already played for quite a while.
As far as having constructed deck goes, if you play in FNM and such you can manage to build a deck without buying additional cards, by trading with other players (or not build the most expensive deck in the format :D). And you can still play a deck "casually" with other people in a store, you can have good level player that want to test their decks too.
On June 03 2013 16:03 Shebuha wrote:
Also: that card is insane.
In limited yes (but there's many stupid cards in limited  ). Is it even played on a construct format ? Because it don't come until turn 3-4,and doesn't do anything on the board until you wait...
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If you don't think the fun you get from playing in whatever event is worth the entry cost (plus whatever cards you get to keep out of it, I've never played MTGO so I don't know how it works there) you really shouldn't enter imo. Back when I used to play MTG with my friends I thought it was well worth the cost to play drafts that I did with them.
If you're playing to "grind" then that sounds like you're not enjoying it enough for it to be worthwhile so I'd just suggest you don't bother. MTG is a great casual game in my opinion. There's no need to play it competitively and you can build great fun casual decks without spending much money at all.
If your complaint here is about MTGO specifically then I have no comments, like I said I never bothered. MTG wouldn't be nearly as fun without playing in person to me.
If you like drafts then one thing me and my friends did a long time ago was we all took a ton of our bad cards that we were never going to use and tossed the entire stack together into a giant several-thousand card pool of bad cards. Then we would use that as a cardpool for drafts (grab 15 random cards and that's one "booster" and then just do a regular draft with those boosters). It's entertaining for a few reasons: you get the draft format experience which is personally my favorite way to play; you get a completely different environment for a lot of cards and weird things end up being good; and it doesn't cost anything (since anyone who's been playing for a while has tons of bad cards they'll never use anyway and they're basically unsellable and untradeable). Probably that's my favorite way I've ever played Magic. Obviously this works just as well for sealed if you want to do that.
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I started playing magic about 13 years ago, and I have constantly been in flux with the game. The problem that arises with the game is it's an extreme drain on your finances. I don't know many people who really quit magic because it's "boring." With all the different formats and qualifying events, there's always something interesting if you put the time, effort, and money into it. From my experience and the people I've played with the last decade through major events , the decision to quit (albeit temporarily most of them time) is that it's just draining. Even if you're not paying out money, there's a lot of effort and time put into the game. You sacrifice weekends and an innumerable amount of hours just keeping in touch with the current formats and rotations. It can easily get to the point where the prestige of doing well at a major qualifying event is just not worth all that sacrifice. It's an extremely hard game to play casually, and to play it competitively, you really have to want the prestige of doing well rather than any literal prize pool. Chances are you're not gonna get paid out.
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First of all, welcome to MTG!
The hard truth is: Magic is expensive. It's not called "cardboard crack" for nothing. That's why the most important part is to have fun. If you don't have fun, paying money for this stuff is mostly wasted.
Here are some tips for playing without a massive bank account:
1. There are some neat guides concerning frugal behaviour in MTGO, for example "Going infinite" or "Rags to Riches"
2. There are articles for "Building on a Budget" where popular Standard decks are modified to be more affordable (e.g. this one. I dropped ~10 tickets for a BG Aggro Deck and by now I've spent several hours playing the shit out of it.
3. Learn the theory. "Limited Information" is my go-to column for drafting. The current writer is 'ok' but I much prefer the previous wirter, Steve Sadin. Let me give you a link to one of his articles: Foundations 1 & 2
4. Learn to play by playing casually. It doesn't cost you anything to play against friends with your starter decks, maybe etend your collection by going to drafts and use those cards to build cool new decks. Don't be afraid to proxy cards when playing casually. As long as you don't proxy a playset of P9 or similar degenerate cards, I'm sure your friends won't really mind.
On a related note: I noticed a vastly different mindset when playing online. When I play offline I (like to think that I) am very polite and like to chat with my opponent. Manascrewed? Bad draw luck? Whatever - it's not important.
When I play MTGO I tend to rage. Hard. It's much less fun and I am often on the verge of flaming my opponent for playing slowly or because he made a lucky draw.
Thats why I actually prefer going to FNM drafts where you can meet fellow players in person. It's a much more social setting than sitting in front of your screen, cracking open virtual boosters. Also, it automatically limits how often you can draft (once a week).
Having said that, I don't consider it paying for the cards, I pay for the experience. 10€ a week for 3 hours of fun (plus cards for casual))? Sounds fair to me. It's totally up to you how often you can afford this. You don't go to the cinema 2 times a day either.
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If u really wanna learn, you can just read the cards on the checklist and understand the meta game.(magic theory craft) Everything is pretty much posting all the possibilities in the internet. Unlike the old days(Beta/alpha/4th ed) where when you have a sick combo it is not revealed until FNM or tournaments.
Also I heard there is this online magic game that does not require you to pay and has all cards readily available (since beta) but I am not sure what it is called now. If someone can tell us so we can play there again I think it is "Apprentice" not sure thou..
If you are not planning to go PRO, you can buy cards per piece (boxes and boosters are not advisable if you are just playing casual) (just go to magic stores online to buy specifica cards) and just make do with commons (poper format), uncommons and some rares you can still enjoy the game with those basic mechanics. I really dont think you need to spend much if you are just playing with friends. This also adds up to your deck building skills the skill or resourcefulness.lol
Cheap ass decks can still be fun and combos can still be deadly (thats why I stick to cheap ass aggro decks as control decks just needed rare pieces that are too expensive).
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United States2822 Posts
On June 03 2013 14:56 Ghin wrote:
If you don't like spending money, MTG is definitely not a game for you lol. Maybe its different now with the widespread adoption of the internet.
Eh, it's possible to "go infinite" on MTGO if you're experienced and are decent at the game.
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I just recently learned how to play Magic in the last couple weeks and I spend about $100 so far. Its pretty cool altho i just play with my gf and have no desire to play pro. I'm about as casual as they come.
one thing I have noticed iss the business model that they used to distribute cards is basically taking a huge shit on the entire player base
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On June 03 2013 16:05 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 16:03 Shebuha wrote:On June 03 2013 14:17 micronesia wrote:I'm pretty much in the same boat, except I have an advantage over you. I started playing about 4 weeks ago. Each weekend I go to a friend's and play some casual format with 4 or 5 other people. I also started going to a local store and doing booster drafts with one of the friends. Finally, I've played somewhat online. The casual group format is good because you can try out decks without spending money or stressing about winning/losing. However, strategy for 1v1 is of course fairly different. The booster drafts in person are good because you are acquiring the cards for only a little more than you would if you bought them straight out, and then you get to play in a tournament and possibly win other prizes on top of it. I had the same problems as you did online. I was doing m13 swiss booster drafts and eventually had most of the m13 cards, so I traded with bots and completed the m13 set and exchanged (redeemed) the digital set for a physical set which is in the mail coming to me right now. I don't think I'm going to do this with the Ravnica block for the reasons you mentioned earlier, and also because the redemption fee is much greater starting with Gatecrash, I believe. Make sure to check out the magic the gather online thread in sports and games if you want to discuss it more with people who are familiar with it. edit: btw Primordial Hydra is sick; here it is for people who don't know (M12 version but it was reprinted for M13): Lemme just say that if your'e playing with other people irl you gotta try playing big FFA games sometime. When I used to play with some dudes we would play like 4-5 player FFA's and they're friggen awesome! We added some misc. rules like you can only attack the people sitting directly next to you and you can't attack a player 2x in a row. It helped prevent ganging and other lame shit. Also: that card is insane. FFA is our main format, and we do sometimes to uphill or downhill. We also use planeswalker cards and character cards and whatnot. Yeah it's fun, although we don't put many limitations... only house rule I can think of is you get a free mulligan, plus additional mulligans are free if they are true (either 0 land or all land).
I've found the most fun FFA format to be Pentacle.
In this mode, you play as 5 (although most odd numbers will do).
Your allies are the guys sitting right next to you. You cannot attack them, and it's most of the times better to help them ; they benefit from things like [url=http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=Imperial%20Mask}Imperial Mask[/url].
Your opponents are across the table : in order to win you have to beat them.
Now the trick is that if one of your allies win you don't with him (unless the three guys across you are dead) - so it naturally leads to tense situations where would be allies try to stem each other like they can, or pass pacts to win together that aren't usually respected. It's really fun stuff, and it gets better when you add Planes, which fit very well with this mode.
It fits also very well with the lore : you can roleplay as each of the 5 colors, helping your allies (white-blue-black-red-green) and bringing down your enemies (blue-red-white-black-green)
If you're not interested in building a competitive deck that costs a kidney, have you tried Commander/EDH ? They are a lot of fun to build, use a lot of your formerly useless cards and are casual by nature.
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Just to clarify -- most of my complaints were specifically about the MTGO limited events but I think I was just not taking the right approach and didn't do enough research into it before dropping money on events. Of course I don't regret it because I had fun, but after they got rid of the triple RTR phantom sealed then I thought it would be impossible to break even since the DGM boosters are only about 2 tix each whereas the RTR were 4 (in other words going 2-1 in phantom sealed events doesn't break even anymore). If I do try MTGO again I'll check out some of those links on going infinite and make sure that I'm starting with the most low-stakes events possible. A few years ago when I was first learning online poker I spent a month or two turning $1 into over $100 and it was a decent learning experience and I don't mind doing something like that again.
I'm planning a real draft with some friends of mine for this weekend though, and I'm really looking forward to it since $15 for an evening of games with friends is well worth it IMO. Do you guys recommend getting a booster box even if it's only 6 people? I was hoping to play with the complete RTR block but it seems that you can only get a booster box of one type of booster, although you save money by buying the packs in bulk. And if we do go for the booster box, what do you guys think is the most fun between RTR, GTC, and DGM?
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On June 05 2013 11:03 Erik.TheRed wrote:
Just to clarify -- most of my complaints were specifically about the MTGO limited events but I think I was just not taking the right approach and didn't do enough research into it before dropping money on events. Of course I don't regret it because I had fun, but after they got rid of the triple RTR phantom sealed then I thought it would be impossible to break even since the DGM boosters are only about 2 tix each whereas the RTR were 4 (in other words going 2-1 in phantom sealed events doesn't break even anymore). If I do try MTGO again I'll check out some of those links on going infinite and make sure that I'm starting with the most low-stakes events possible. A few years ago when I was first learning online poker I spent a month or two turning $1 into over $100 and it was a decent learning experience and I don't mind doing something like that again.
I'm planning a real draft with some friends of mine for this weekend though, and I'm really looking forward to it since $15 for an evening of games with friends is well worth it IMO. Do you guys recommend getting a booster box even if it's only 6 people? I was hoping to play with the complete RTR block but it seems that you can only get a booster box of one type of booster, although you save money by buying the packs in bulk. And if we do go for the booster box, what do you guys think is the most fun between RTR, GTC, and DGM?
There are lots of things here:
YOU CANNOT GO INFINITE unless you already know what you are doing. I have been playing magic for over 8 years and it is almost impossible. If you drop some initial money on a constructed deck, which I think is the best way to play over and over and not loose any money once you get good, you have a chance to go infinite. The people that go infinite are the ones that play the daily events of all formats and have a significant edge. Please don't listen to people that say its easily possible or that people do it.
With that being said I would suggest looking at dropping $100 one time for a deck in colors that you like for a competitive deck(sometimes more) so that way when you play constructed ques, and especially dailies you can begin to break even really easy and sometimes make a few bucks. I did this and spent $200 online and bought stuff and in one month had worked up 100 tix back just playing over and over. It is easily possible this way to keep playing at a higher level and get better and not loose money or break even.
Drafting is super fun but not really profitable online. There are too many good people unless you are a wizard imo. in 4-3-2-2 its nearly impossible and in 8-4 you need to be gettting some good ques. That being said swiss and 4-3-2-2 are good ways to loose minimal money and continue to play. I would always pull up the marketplace and check rares as you open them when you draft because a good money rare most of the time outweights a single pick
Drafting in person I feel is best at a shop if there is one in your area. It is super fun and a cool environment. You also learn a lot more from doing this over just drafting with 4 other friends. Again your idea of buying a box or a good amount of boosters and drafting with your buddies for a few nights is SUPER fun. I have had plenty of nights where we played for hours upon hours. You can always randomly put packs back together later if only one dude bought the box and draft again for fun.
The money barrier isn't bad if you think about other hobbies. Sometimes the idea of paying money for online cards you don't have and buying cards in person makes no sense and is tough so I would really figure out which format you like better and invest in those cards.
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I'd like to get more into magic. I'm fairly novice, but I've played casually on MWS for a few years if anybody wants to join me, just send me a PM or reply or whatever.
Also yeah, Primordial Hydra is one of those cards that's like "If you don't have a response in 3 turns, this is going to get bad."
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This game is so old. I didnt know there are still people who play this. Nice game though
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United States2822 Posts
On June 05 2013 21:09 aNGryaRchon wrote:
This game is so old. I didnt know there are still people who play this. Nice game though
More people than ever, actually.
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If you're trying to get into playing the game, I've wondered if its better to just play the game online through steam or w/e opposed to buying like a 'starter booster' as the op did? Anyone have an opinion on this?
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United States24680 Posts
Poo I don't understand your question. By 'on steam' do you mean the single-player game Duel of the Planeswalkers, or do you mean something else? If the former, it's a good way to learn the basics, but not to get good at magic.
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On June 06 2013 01:03 micronesia wrote:
Poo I don't understand your question. By 'on steam' do you mean the single-player game Duel of the Planeswalkers, or do you mean something else? If the former, it's a good way to learn the basics, but not to get good at magic.
Yes that's what I was referring to. I actually didn't realize it was only single-player 0.0
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On June 06 2013 01:03 micronesia wrote:
Poo I don't understand your question. By 'on steam' do you mean the single-player game Duel of the Planeswalkers, or do you mean something else? If the former, it's a good way to learn the basics, but not to get good at magic.
I can't remember, does it let you mulligan? Because in that case it might be a bit more helpful for the OP here. That's one of the biggest sources of mana screw. It definitely helps you iron out non-set specific mechanical interactions (like destroy effects not destroying indestructible creatures, for example).
Plus the Steam version comes with a Scavenging Ooze promo.
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On June 06 2013 03:30 Poo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 01:03 micronesia wrote:
Poo I don't understand your question. By 'on steam' do you mean the single-player game Duel of the Planeswalkers, or do you mean something else? If the former, it's a good way to learn the basics, but not to get good at magic. Yes that's what I was referring to. I actually didn't realize it was only single-player 0.0
So my friend who is really good at Magic told me about a free magic client called Cockatrice that basically gives you access to every card and lets you play draft events and such (apparently that's how he used to train). Seems like there's consistently about 600 people online on the most popular server as well, and an active chat. There's also an entire cockatrice subreddit where you can find more info on how to set it up.
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I guess magic is similar to p2win until the higher level then? lol
no wonder why my friend is constantly buying new packs and complaining why his deck isn't perfect etc
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I tried playing this game. Someone let me use his deck and then played me with a deck with like 500$ more. It wasn't very fun
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On June 10 2013 10:00 Erik.TheRed wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 03:30 Poo wrote:On June 06 2013 01:03 micronesia wrote:
Poo I don't understand your question. By 'on steam' do you mean the single-player game Duel of the Planeswalkers, or do you mean something else? If the former, it's a good way to learn the basics, but not to get good at magic. Yes that's what I was referring to. I actually didn't realize it was only single-player 0.0 So my friend who is really good at Magic told me about a free magic client called Cockatrice that basically gives you access to every card and lets you play draft events and such (apparently that's how he used to train). Seems like there's consistently about 600 people online on the most popular server as well, and an active chat. There's also an entire cockatrice subreddit where you can find more info on how to set it up.
I tried looking/ downloading Cockatrice I finally found the client but the card database I am having trouble with. Does anyone know where it is at? since I think Hasbro has filed complaints with the creator of cockatrice forcing him to shutdown the cockatrice site. Is the community still active?
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Dont use that software if it seems difficult. Just use magic work station imo. This is what I used to use to play games and it was very easy to use.
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I remember the stupidiest/funest/retard game i played, it was a 4 player FFA, on the board, dovescape, dual nature, magnus of the tabernacle and the blue leyline.
So all non-creatures spells become doves and die unless u casted a 1 cost spell(AND NO ONE ELSE HAS A DOVE), and all creature spells died. FUN FUN FUN
-_-
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On June 11 2013 18:04 woreyour wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2013 10:00 Erik.TheRed wrote:On June 06 2013 03:30 Poo wrote:On June 06 2013 01:03 micronesia wrote:
Poo I don't understand your question. By 'on steam' do you mean the single-player game Duel of the Planeswalkers, or do you mean something else? If the former, it's a good way to learn the basics, but not to get good at magic. Yes that's what I was referring to. I actually didn't realize it was only single-player 0.0 So my friend who is really good at Magic told me about a free magic client called Cockatrice that basically gives you access to every card and lets you play draft events and such (apparently that's how he used to train). Seems like there's consistently about 600 people online on the most popular server as well, and an active chat. There's also an entire cockatrice subreddit where you can find more info on how to set it up. I tried looking/ downloading Cockatrice I finally found the client but the card database I am having trouble with. Does anyone know where it is at? since I think Hasbro has filed complaints with the creator of cockatrice forcing him to shutdown the cockatrice site. Is the community still active?
I just PMed you the info on how to set it up. If anyone else needs the instructions/links just PM me and I'll send them your way
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EPT
