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I've been playing since... Hmm... probably around Unlimited. For all you newcomers, that's the edition after Beta. What really kills me is the way that in general, cards have just been getting better.
For example, Ice Age had Polar Kraken. At a cost of 8UUU, it was an 11/11 trampling creature with the ability "Cumulative Upkeep: sacrifice a land." It also entered the battlefield tapped. Compare that to the more modern (Darksteel set) Darksteel Colossus. At the same mana cost (11), it is easier to cast, same power, same toughness, and also tramples. However, instead of the negative abilities of coming into play tapped and cumulative upkeep of sacrificing lands, the Darksteel Colossus is indestructible. Which would you rather have? For the sake of being as clear as possible, I will note that the Darksteel Colossus can't be put into play via graveyard recursion, because whenever it enters the graveyard from anywhere, it is immediately shuffled back into your library. For the competitive crowd, this is probably a big thing. However, for casual players, the Colossus is clearly a better card.
For a second example, for a long time, Grizzly Bears were a definitive second turn summon, a 1G. It had no abilities, but was the only 2/2 summon for 2 mana. Then came 2/2 creatures for 1G with abilities. More recently, there has been the 2/3 Elven warrior for GG, and the 3/2 trampling Garruk's Companion, also for GG. With these options available, there's no point in including Grizzly Bears in a deck anymore. Hell, one of the 1G 2/2 creatures with abilities I mentioned earlier is Ashcoat bears. It is identical in every way to Grizzly Bears, right down to creature type, except that you can play it as an instant.
I understand that some of the changes they've made to cards has probably been for balance reasons (cancel as opposed to counterspell, lightning bolt to shock, and then they brought back lightning bolt), this general progression of newer cards getting more for the same mana seems like a strategy to increase profits from the casual sector of the player base - the people who don't play tournaments and just play with their friends.
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On January 07 2011 10:42 sob3k wrote:
This doesn't actually work as a combo, because sacrificing it is part of the cost.
On January 07 2011 08:12 Judicator wrote:
As You mentioned Lin Siivi retarded combo, i must ask if you remember the rising waters thingy. That was soooooooo anoying..
High Tide/Reset/Turnabout isn't nearly as annoying as Ad Nauseum Tendrils of Agony combined with rituals and tutors and such. Playing against Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top is annoying.
All the old sets had the good spells, but they had some really shitty creatures (playing beta sealed online for fun means you are going to be running demonic tutors with scathe zombies). As people have often complained, there is 'Creature Creep' where all the creatures slowly get better than the ones before them.
Originally Serra Angel was an amazing card, you had a 4/4 beater with evasion for 5, and it could block. Then came exalted angel. Why block when you can just gain 4? Also more toughness and morph, meaning it can swing on turn 4, but on the other hand it cost 6 to hardcast. Then came BSA. 5/5 Flying Lifelink for 5. Better than most other creatures.
I will also point out: Tarmogoyf.
Anyway, basically Urza Block was the last of sets having all sorts of crazy spells. MM Block had a few great spells (Gush, Port, etc). Invasion didn't really have much, it brought Fact or Fiction, Vindicate was pretty broken, as was Pernicious Deed and a few of the Wishes.
Then came more tribal stuff... Piledriver and such. I luckily stopped playing IRL here.
Storm came out
Then came affinity >.>
Then we got Jitte and Gifts Ungiven, Sensei's Divining Top. Coldsnap gave us Counterbalance to go with Top.
Trygon Predator came next, then we had all sorts of crazy stuff happen in the Time Spiral Block.
goyf, and then suddenly Dredge came up with Bridge from below.
Then omgwtf Fae dominates the standard format. Too many tribal cards makes stuff too good, like Spellstutter Sprite, Bitterblossom, Cryptic Command, Vendilion Clique. Thoughtsieze becomes another form of Duress. Vivid lands allow standard and extended decks to run absurd numbers of colors and not get color screwed. Jund and the other shards (Jund wins) rolls in with even more broken cards for all formats, Bloodbraid Elf, Blightning, Rhox War Monk, Sprouting Thirinax, Putrid Leech, Ad Nauseam, Cruel Ultimatum.
Then comes Rise of Eldrazi, casual players hate eldrazi because they basically read "When I attack, target player wins the game." Goblin Guide makes red decks stronger. We go from Jackal Pup to Goblin Guide... We get JACE THE MIND SCULPTOR, who provides a free brainstorm each turn, and then has other uses, such as being a win condition with enough control (IE after you brainstorm a few times). We also see Iona, who is another annoying target to reanimate.
Most recently we've had the Titan cycle, so we go from Craw Wurm to Primeval Titan. Wurmcoil Engine is like a 6th Titan.
Basically since Shards, tons of creatures are suddenly absurdly strong,
Overall, if you want to play constructed, play Legacy, since although it costs more than a Standard deck, but you don't need to replace 1/3 of your deck every year. Plus the cards in Legacy hold their value better than cards in standard, since cards that rotate out are suddenly forgotten. Plus, some really cheap decks are actually good, you can make a pretty strong burn deck for <$100, but it's not too fun, since it's basically 'cast all your stuff, win, or run out of spells and lose.' But it beats either buying 3-4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor or 4 Titans before even starting to make a deck.
My favorite format online would definately be the random format tournament, where you have ~60-80 minutes to make a deck out of cards in a random core set, 2 large sets and 4 smaller sets (legacy banlist). Lots of fun and nostalgia, since you play decks that were great in standard years ago, mixed with random new cards, as well as seeing how some semi-new decks fare against old decks. Since this is online, you don't have to worry about price of cards and all, you just make a good deck and play it.
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I played a long time ago as well. I loved the old cards much more than the new ones. My UG madness deck was the shit!
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United States47024 Posts
On January 07 2011 15:24 bobbob wrote:
This doesn't actually work as a combo, because sacrificing it is part of the cost.
And the post you quoted had nothing to do with the two cards as a combo, but about their art.
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Yea, ever since the damage on the stack removal and other new rules and these new planeswalker types and some of the new abilities and reworking of old abilities is really really gay. Some of these things added more depth and deception/skill to the game but noobs just got confused so they changed shit. Thats like blizzard balancing sc2 because the copper ranks have trouble with cannon rushes, oh wait..
For mtg to survive they unfortunately have to constantly pump out expensive new ridiculous cards otherwise it will stagnate etc. To combat the spend 300$ every 3 months to play, you're better off playing draft and selling/trading cards for packs and shit. You can still win tournies and money and etc and it arguably takes more skill to play draft.
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This thread takes me back, since I started around the end of Mercadian and quit the competitive scene after Mirrodin block cycled out. The game simply is not the same and with each new set coming out faster and faster, it is way too expensive to keep up with if you're a student.
I find myself disgusted with card prices as well since many of the other mythic rares and regular rares happen to be trash. There's a few decent cards and then 4-5 broken cards that cost anywhere from 15-50 USD. It kinda makes me sad when I think about it.
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Oh man, I remember when Urza's block was brand new. Good times. Then again I was always a fan of playing the most broken combo decks out there. I know lots of people hate on them but for me there's no greater joy than killing an opponent in the first 1-3 turns with something utterly broken. Anyone remember the Cadaverous Bloom deck back in the day, where you would go to negative life (before they changed the rules on that) quite often, only to Drain Life your way to victory? Now that was fun 
While lots of cards do go down in value a lot when they cycle out of Standard, some of the older cards have gained a lot in value. Back in the day I made sure to collect play sets of all the dual lands (the real, Revised/Unlimited Edition ones) and two play sets of some. They have since almost tripled in value, making me very happy.
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Wow havnt even thought about magic in forever. Still got a few boxes in my closet, old 3rd, 4th edition, ice age and homelands. Held on to em because the kid that got me into passed away in a tragic boating accident. Thanks for the thread, fond memories of my middle school years! Rip Andy.
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I'm always hyped for new expansions...and then I don't buy them. I have a lot of cards, 8 of the power 9 (except the Back Lotus, ~.~).
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On January 07 2011 08:53 Durak wrote:I remember when Ice Age was the new set. 
This lol, snow-covered-lands were soo pretty :D
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On January 07 2011 10:29 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On January 07 2011 10:26 Judicator wrote:
I think you like to use a very broad definition of combo decks. Still the argument stands, Urza and Masques were the worst so many annoying cards that demanded an answer then and there or you'll be staring down shit. Onslaught was looking alright until Mirrodin reared it's ugly head.
Scars is too early to be judged although Besieged right now looks very bland. From what I've seen, WotC goes in cycles--they start with a block that's too strong, follow up with one that's too weak, then end up with a decent block. Urza (too strong) Masques (too weak) Invasion (good) Mirrodin (too strong) Kamigawa (too weak) Ravnica (good)
Eh but you can't read that too much i mean the rath cycle before the artifact cycle was very strong you're also missing odyssey cycle which i would call good or too strong if anything after invasion and i think onslaught which i didn't stick around for so i can't judge. I think they aim for blocks to have a strong good and weak inside each block/cycle because for the most part that's how i remember it.
I stop playing what 8th? edition when they betrayed my eyes with change! Mostly i just needed to stop spending shit tons of money on cards and found w.e reason i could.
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On January 07 2011 10:42 sob3k wrote:
Obviously magic has gone downhill.
Its a product. If they release new sets that are of the same power as the old ones then people have no incentive to buy them. Therefore every new release becomes slightly more OP in order to force people to go out and get it in order to not get raped.
I stopped playing years ago, but me and a few friends pooled all our cards in a big box and we still sometimes pull em out every once in a while, its a fun game.
The art also went to shit mostly. I remember playing a game where you pulled out random cards and tried to call the artist just by looking at the style. Good fucking luck doing that anymore. Plus all the really crazy talented artists left or shifted to the more simplified style that they decided to go with in the new sets. I missed when each artist contributed in completely their own style without even trying to make a unified body of work.
I feel a lot of people having great experiences when they were younger, saddened by the fact that things evolve. There has been great art over the years for sure - Whenever I found a Ron Spencer piece I'd try and search for the hidden names in the artwork, see if you can find them : D
+ Show Spoiler +
Hint:
+ Show Spoiler +
And also:
+ Show Spoiler +
Hint:
+ Show Spoiler +
But overall, I think the artwork still has improved. It has gone away from simplistic, often childish, drawings to more intricate and polished art. Consider some of Phil Foglio's art: (and he made a lot)
+ Show Spoiler +
Ron Spencer's sister, Terese Nielsen, still makes art for mtg (they worked together on the "reflection" series of shadowmoore) and is one of the few who still has an abstract style. She uses a lot of geometry in her pieces, and they are beautiful:
+ Show Spoiler +
The name of the of the card is Nature's Spiral, the card let's you grab a permanent from your graveyard and the flavour text goes like this: "Like nature, the fern spirals back on itself, eternally seeking its own center." Yea, I am a sucker for anything with a green feel.
At times I missed the unpolished, raw style of previous series, but personally I believe that the art changed for the better.
Counterspell now costs 3 mana while imbaduress costs 1 black mana.
Does anyone remember cabal therapy+duress?
I am certain that the fact that they are tinkering around with (and not just lessening) the mana cost of equivalent spells is a tell-tale sign, that they are actually attempting to balance the game. I read an interview with Mark Rosewater, the lead designer, in which he stated that he was wary of the fact that as a business, it was tempting to turn up the power of cards with every set to keep people buying.
Off topic: He also wrote this, and similar, hilarious facebook conversation between the colours: (remember, it's a facebook conversation on a wall, start from the bottom)
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/fb/mr343
The game is generally evolving to a state where creatures are being comparatively stronger. And honestly, though I feel some newer creatures are way too strong to be any fun, I feel this is the right direction in which to move.
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As a former professional Magic player, I can assure you it's not hard to keep up with new sets if you know the value of cards, and how to trade them. That said, it would be incredibly expensive to get into the game again if you had no cards of value.
As far as the current metagame, I have to say I don't like it very much. I was always a constructed player, but today I only play limited on Magic Online, because I find most constructed decks too easy and boring to play. Extended is the most interesting format; if you're an old-school player who wants to get back into it, I would recommend starting there. Otherwise, EDH and Cube are both very very skill-intensive and fun formats, and they don't really require much in the way of investment.
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As far as art direction, i dislike the addition of the extra boarders, although it may in theory clean up the look atleast in terms of reading goes, it think it's ugly the addition of the color white to the boarder surrounding the image and text i think is ugly, i also think that they need to deemphasize the boarder that acts as a transition between the two. They can keep the gradient over the text and keep the text black but eh i don't feel for the style change.
The other change is the colors it's like the bumped up the saturation and moved for a more dynamic change of darks and lights. which i never cared for things often aren't so bright and colorful so i've always found it a bit garish.
infact...
+ Show Spoiler +
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On January 07 2011 18:25 semantics wrote:As far as art direction, i dislike the addition of the extra boarders, although it may in theory clean up the look atleast in terms of reading goes, it think it's ugly the addition of the color white to the boarder surrounding the image and text i think is ugly, i also think that they need to deemphasize the boarder that acts as a transition between the two. They can keep the gradient over the text and keep the text black but eh i don't feel for the style change. The other change is the colors it's like the bumped up the saturation and moved for a more dynamic change of darks and lights. which i never cared for things often aren't so bright and colorful so i've always found it a bit garish. infact... + Show Spoiler +
I agree. They improved readability of the cards but made them look tackier (the new look, I find, would have been better suited to a sci-fi CCG). And who cares about readability? Anybody who has played more than a couple of games will recognize the cards by the artwork anyway, you don't spend a whole hell of a lot of time reading the cards when you play.
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I agree with above post. When I saw this new design I was like wtf are these legend of 5 rings cards?!??!
And I really really disliked this change for artifacts. They look like white cards now, so dumb.
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Avatar of Woe is my all time favorite card.
The power level goes up year by year, it is really starting to feel quite noticeable in the game that the rate of which cards are increasing in power (on average) from set to set, is really getting out of hand. A casual deck from 1995 could hold fair against a casual deck from 2000. A casual deck from 2005 would likely be demolished by a casual deck from 2010. I am getting out of the normal game for the most part, I want to get into Elder Dragon Highlander, but very very few people in my are play standard Magic: The Gathering.
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I loved my artifact deck. Glimmervoids were my pride and joy and they actually allowed me to get and abuse clockwork dragons.
That being said....I stopped played years ago.
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Im thinking about getting into Magic: The Gathering.
sadly I grew up in a christain home so it was kinda frowned upon, so i couldnt get into it when i heard about it ages ago.
is it still worth getting into?
(also, if anyone's willing to sell their old decks, pm me, i might be interested :> )
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On January 07 2011 19:09 Fir3fly wrote:
Im thinking about getting into Magic: The Gathering.
sadly I grew up in a christain home so it was kinda frowned upon, so i couldnt get into it when i heard about it ages ago.
is it still worth getting into?
(also, if anyone's willing to sell their old decks, pm me, i might be interested :> )
Not all Christians oppose Magic: The Gathering, I know many who play it, I am one of them.
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