EPTJust posting to say hi, im a magic player from the 90's who is relapsing hard after 15 years of inactivity. I know how to play but obviously know almost nothing about the sets. Any beginners resources that you have found helpful and would like to share would be appreciated.
Ive got a few physical cards from the ravnia block, but will mostly be playing online. Feel free to add me, same name as here.
Ive got a few physical cards from the ravnia block, but will mostly be playing online. Feel free to add me, same name as here.
Ok so here goes: There are a couple of major changes in the rules since way back in the day:
1) combat damage no longer goes on the stack- when you get to the point where things do damage, they just do it, you can't react to it. You have to declare anything you're doing before combat damage is calculated. the practical upshot of this is you cannot both deal damage with a dude and sacrifice him to do something.
2) legends now work differently (this was very recent). Essentially, YOU can only have one of any legend on your side of the battlefield at once. If you play another, you choose one to sacrifice. This also applies to planeswalkers (which might also be new to you)
A lot of terms that appear across all sets have also been switched around or keyworded:
'Remove from the game' = Exile
'When this creature deals damage to another creature, destroy that creature' = Deathtouch
'When this creature deals damage, you gain that much life' = Lifelink
'Wall' = Defender
'Attacking does not cause this creature to tap'= Vigilance
The main 'long form' format these days is called Modern. Modern is every block and core set from eighth edition onwards, (everything from onslaught back is excluded). These are:
Mirrodin: An artifact themed block that introduced equipment (artifacts that can be attached to creatures like enchantments, but don't die when the creature does) and indestructibility (a permanent with that property cannot die through being damaged or effects that 'destroy' it. reducing it to 0 toughness or exiling it still gets rid of it)
Kamigawa: A legend themed block without huge influence on the overall modern game
Ravnica City of Guilds: A multicolour 'urban' themed block that gave each colour pair a name and a unique mechanic. You'll probably hear a lot of these since return to ravnica is the current block, using the same terms. See that one for details. Ravnica also introduced hybrid mana that is diagonally split across the symbol. Hybrid mana counts and can be paid with either kind of mana.
Time Spiral: Time spiral returned largely to dominaria and was themed around various temporal mechanics- flashback (cards can be played a second time from the graveyard, suspend (play a card cheaply and put counters on it, taking one off each turn until none remain, then it comes into play). Finally, Storm (copy a spell for each other spell you've played this turn) made a return. this mechanic is still very prevalent in Modern combo decks that rely on spamming cheap spells that generate mana or draw cards then playing one massively stormed card. The last set of the Time Spiral block, Future Sight, had preview cards that had mechanics from future sets, so sometimes you'll see some more modern stuff out of place on these cards.
Lorwyn: Lorwyn was a block themed around creature types set on a british/celtic mythology inspired plane. It introduced the 'tribal' type for non-creature cards, which gave them a type- eg. Tribal enchantment- Elf. so if you had a card that said gain mana for the amount of elves in play, or search for an elf, you would count that enchantment. Lorwyn also introduced planeswalkers, possibly the largest development in modern magic.
Planeswalkers are cards that act as 'mini players'. They have abilities which cause them to gain and lose loyalty. Loyalty is treated like player health, so an opponent can attack a planeswalker with their creatures, damage causes them to lose loyalty. At 0 loyalty they've had enough of your shit and peace out. Most planeswalkers have an ability that they can trigger if they reach enough loyalty that will generally win the game outright or make it impossible for the other side to make headway, so they're high priority targets.
Shards of Alara: Shards of Alara was a multicolour themed set that centered around each colour and it's two allied colours. Each of these tri-colour groups had a home 'shard' that is now generally used as slang for a deck of that colour set:
white BLUE black = Esper
black RED green = Jund
blue BLACK red= Grixis
white GREEN red = Naya
green WHITE blue = Bant
Shards also introduced coloured artifacts to the game and the 'mythic' rarity- on average, one out of every eight rares will be a mythic.
Zendikar: A land/exploration themed set that initially focused around interactions with land cards and cards that 'grew'- creatures that leveled up, enchantments that powered up as you did certain things and so on. Later in the block rize of the eldrazi shifted the focus to a lovecraftian horror theme, with the first colourless, non-artifact cards- eldrazi. Eldrazi are generally really big and incredibly nasty, with their paragon- Emrakul, the Aeons Torn being the core of most 'cheat the biggest motherfucker you can into play' type decks
Scars of Mirrodin: The second Mirrodin set tied it back into the old Dominaria storyline more heavily, coming under assault and ultimately succumbing to Phyrexia. It brought back a lot from the original Mirrodin, while introducing the 'poison' mechanic. Creatures or effects with 'poison' deal damage as -1/-1 counters and poison counters to players. When a player gets 10 poison counters, they lose the game regardless of their life total. Naturally, poison has become a surefire way of winning against infinite life combos. The final set in the block introduced 'phyrexian mana' which is coloured mana that may instead be paid with 2 life. Cards with this type of mana have become popular in many competitive decks where life is not a huge concern and quick, reliable effects that would normally be difficult to access for a colour combination are made available through paying for phyrexian mana costs with life.
Innistrad: The set just about to leave standard (type 2), innistrad is a gothic horror themed set with humans, werewolves, vampires, ghosts etc. It has a lot of graveyard mechanics (flashback, undying) and is the first set that has really broken the traditional creature archetypes of magic (Elves, goblins, merfolk etc). Since the white archetype (humans) and the black ones (zombies, vampires, demons) had a disproportionate amount of representation and options in other colours, they've become popular deck types over traditional tribal decks. Innistrad was the first set to really push creature combat to counter a modern format that was almost purely about control and combo decks, so you'll find that creatures from Innistrad forward are quite powerful compared to what you're used to.
Return to Ravnica: The most recent set, which once again brought us back to Ravnica and the old guild-colour pairs. Each guild got a new mechanic and a facelift in terms of what it goes about. I won't go into much detail, but I'll list each guild for reference, since these are often used as slang for dual colour decks of those colours
Orzhov : W/B
Selesnya: W/G
Azorius: W/U
Boros: W/R
Gruul: R/G
Rakdos: B/R
Izzet: U/R
Dimir: U/B
Simic: U/G
Golgari: G/B
You'll often hear people say they're running 'selesnya weenie' or similar, when they just mean 'green white weenie'
So, that's it for now. If you want more info on something let me know and I'll try and kill my wrists
