So I have heard a LOT of bad press for it but why dose it have bad press, isn't it simpily a wargame with cards? (I feel like im going to get lectured now...)
so why is it? also if you have had bad experiances with it post it here.
I've never heard anything all that bad in MTG. In fact it's pretty popular with just about all the gamers I know. In fact, even some non-gamers I know have enjoyed picking it up when they were introduced.
Granted like everything in life you tend to have "That one guy" show up every now and then but you can't really fault the game for that.
That said I wouldn't really compare MTG to a Wargame, it's a very different sort of experience.
I played it a looong time ago, back when it was relatively fresh (Ice Age up to Tempest). It's expensive, and gives me all of the obnoxious hypercompetitiveness of 40k along with the agonizing over deck building/tactics that is normal for about any of these games, all without the fun and joy I get from assembling/painting models.
As an (probably unfair) stereotype, I've also found MTG players more annoying and more overly sensitive about criticism of their hobby. At least with my group, someone rips on 40k, we have a good laugh and we refer to it as us playing with our 'man dollies'. You be critical of MTG, and people react like you punched them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of the guys at work is actually going to a booster tournament this weekend and was talking about the game. Apparently the rules/powers of the cards have changed so much I didn't even recognize the game. I got completely lost about the time he said '...cards upside down'.
daedalus wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of the guys at work is actually going to a booster tournament this weekend and was talking about the game. Apparently the rules/powers of the cards have changed so much I didn't even recognize the game. I got completely lost about the time he said '...cards upside down'.
I suspect he may be talking about the new Double-faced cards (DFCs) being released as a part of the set innistrad later this month. They're just cards without the standard back, and full rules on both sides. It's a horror themed set and used to represent a creature that changes form. One side might be a bat, with the other side being a vampire or one side might be a human, while the other side is a full werewolf. In all cases the card has some kind of trigger that once met causes you to flip over the card, playing with (generally stronger), creature on the other side.
Otherwise he may have been talking a unofficial convention where some players like to keep creatures with summoning sickness "Upside down" that is with the top part of the card facing them. It has no rules meaning and isn't actually a part of the game, it's just something some people like to do to remind themselves they can't tap or attack with it that turn.
I've just got into MTG. I'm liking it a lot. Beings as I used to play a lot of Yugioh, I prefer it.
Yugioh players are a LOT worse than MTG players. Although, like someone said, you still get 'that guy'. Luckily, at my FLGS, we only have one - and most of us ignore him for the most part as he is really obnoxious and childish for a 40 year old.
Mtg : a top standard deck will cost in the region of a warhammer/40K army. Yes you can play straight away but when a new set is released in 3 months you'll need to replace about $100 of cards. Then when a block rotates out you're FUBARED. Also every YEAR (used to be every 2 years) the core set rotates...
It's taken waaay too seriously to be a fun game unless you play with the right people - then it comes down to who can spend the most money on a deck.
Some formats are more fun than others - EDH/Commander for example. You just need to find the right group of people. unfortunately competitive events are an exercise in douchbaggery of rules exploitation and the ever present 'metagame'.
If you've got the cash and enjoy it try it. However I'd recommend commander or legacy or even the pre-releases as updating a deck to remain 'compeditive' (and to what end - fancy making the finals? do you have the money/time to take off and do that for weekends at a time?)
Yeah, playing competitively can get expensive (as it can with any game), but understand that there are a ton of different sub-types of games you can play through magic. You can play standard tournaments where you'll find the most competition, or you can look into some of the other game types.
There's modern, extended, and legacy which are almost as competitive as standard but require a lot of knowledge about the older card base.
EDH is by definition a less competitive, multi-player game. I like this type because of its casual nature. You still have to do some investigating into the older card base, but this knowledge comes with time. As you play you'll pick up different cards and different ways to use them. It can still get expensive, but the expense goes up with your passion for the game.
Interestingly, there is a game type out right now called "pauper", in which you use some of the worst cards you can find to try and make a decent deck. This probably says something about the power creep in magic, but its fun and silly to play.
Finally, get into some draft or booster tournaments. In these official competition they give you booster packs that you have to share with other players, and you basically build your deck out of those. This makes it so everyone has equal opportunity in building your decks. By that I mean you're not expected to compete against someone who's thrown down $100 on the deck.
I've been playing on and off between casual and competitive for ten years now. I think I've finally resolved to sticking with casual play but I have a group of friend who still keep up with the competitive crowd. I think it all comes down to your tastes in gaming, and I say you should give it a shot. I personally recommend you go to a draft.
Good Luck!
I've never heard MtG get bad press. My roomates and I just got into it, them having never played a card game before and myself having played years ago, and we all love it. We probably played for 6 hours today, just playing a few 1v1v1 free for alls.
I refuse to play MtG until they bring Banding back.
No, seriously, I played a LONG ago (quit at around Visions), it was really fun, but the card and expansion design began to center around tourney play and it became really meh.
In my opinion, tournaments ruined Magic. The game was designed to be played in limited environment: the designers didn't ever think that someone could have time & money to acquire multiple copies of rare powerful cards which broke the game. So they had to tone it down in card design, and then cynically began exploiting that later. I never found playing 'competive' decks enjoyable: games tended to be very one-sided, either you won big or lost big. In a tabletob wargame, even 'weak' army can be fun to play even if you lose most of the time, but this was not the case with Magic.
As I said, in my opinion Magic works best in limited environment where you are limited by what cards you can physically acquire. In unlimited environment, 90% of the cards become useless. I had never any interest playing in a tournament unless it was a booster draft or sealed deck.
Really digging the new set even though I havent bought anything in years. (were wolves, vampires, evil scientists, witch hunters? Oh my!) Of course then again I have a soft spot for Kamigawa, one of the worst game mechanic sets ever
Take last year at college, for example. A bunch of guys on my dorm floor all realized that we used to play Magic. The next thing we know, old decks are being brought out, and everyone's having a good time.
Then it starts. Someone purchases a few cards to help their deck. That person starts to win. A lot. So a few other people go online and get some cards they need. '
The next thing you know, half the floor's dead and I only escaped the bomb by tying together bedsheets and jumping out of my bedroom window on the 11th floor.
Take last year at college, for example. A bunch of guys on my dorm floor all realized that we used to play Magic. The next thing we know, old decks are being brought out, and everyone's having a good time.
Then it starts. Someone purchases a few cards to help their deck. That person starts to win. A lot. So a few other people go online and get some cards they need. '
The next thing you know, half the floor's dead and I only escaped the bomb by tying together bedsheets and jumping out of my bedroom window on the 11th floor.
A real man would have jumped out of the 13th floor, just to be safe
I feel like any game can get taken out of proportion, especially if you put a competitive emphasis on it. If you feel like playing a casual game with friends then just play, don't get all wrapped up in who is buying cards and winning with them.
The other thing that is cool about magic, especially if you're playing casually, you're not restricted to one deck. If someone buys cards for their deck to make it better then you can just make a new deck; one geared to defeating the first one. Its not expensive and every deck style has its weakness.
God forbid, solid tournament rules I preferred Yugioh to MtG because I don't like having to draw resources as you'll inevitably lose/win unfairly due to a bad hand. That being said, there's nothing wrong with having a game that's more about the game and less about some hobby aspect. I don't understand the hate. And a top tier magic deck will costs less than a 40k army fwiw, dunno what game people are talking about.
And a top tier magic deck will costs less than a 40k army fwiw, dunno what game people are talking about.
Plus, if you pawn your deck off at the right moment you have a fair chance of getting 100%+ of your investment back. Try doing that with your warhams .
People complain so much about the expense of playing tournament magic, but those 9 Razorbacks you need for competitive 40k aren't exactly cheap either.
And as someone already mentioned, at least the rules are solid enough for tournament play rather than being full of ymdc grey areas.
Daedalus wrote:One of the guys at work is actually going to a booster tournament this weekend and was talking about the game. Apparently the rules/powers of the cards have changed so much I didn't even recognize the game. I got completely lost about the time he said '...cards upside down'.
It's no cheap expense even if you don't want to play competitively. The card sets are rotated in and out of playability every year or so, it's damn near impossible to keep up half the time.
Some hardcore Magic players at my old FLGS told us that Warhammer was a huge waste of money. I asked him how long his cards were "usable". He replied probably for another 6 months. I then proceeded to inform him that some of the minis I have are older than he was, and they are still playable. He shut up.
oh, and I played Magic when the Revised edition and the Dark were new, quit after Ice Age...
SoloFalcon138 wrote:It's no cheap expense even if you don't want to play competitively. The card sets are rotated in and out of playability every year or so, it's damn near impossible to keep up half the time.
I don't know what you base this on. You can use any card you want in casual. Once you've gotten past the start-up you probably only need 4 or 5 playsets when a new set comes out (and that's me with my 25+ decks, you'll probably only want 1 or 2 sets when you have a reasonable number), so you go to your local vendor and get them. Not hard to keep up at all.
SoloFalcon138 wrote:He replied probably for another 6 months.
Well that's just standard, one of seven different tournament modes. And then there's the countless casual variants.
And a top tier magic deck will costs less than a 40k army fwiw, dunno what game people are talking about.
Plus, if you pawn your deck off at the right moment you have a fair chance of getting 100%+ of your investment back. Try doing that with your warhams .
People complain so much about the expense of playing tournament magic, but those 9 Razorbacks you need for competitive 40k aren't exactly cheap either.
And as someone already mentioned, at least the rules are solid enough for tournament play rather than being full of ymdc grey areas.
BUT while Salamander marines might not be 'top tier' at the moment, they will still be decent. Eventually eldar will get a new codex. You can be faithful and committed. In mtg if you like say black/red the 'meta' might make that really weak so t obe compeditive you have to play specific decks. Also it gets boring facing the same decks with only minor varients.
Seriously guys get to the WOTCdecks site and somewhere like www.magiccardmarket.eu and try and price up that top deck. You CAN play warhammer for less than that!
Phototoxin wrote:BUT while Salamander marines might not be 'top tier' at the moment, they will still be decent. Eventually eldar will get a new codex. You can be faithful and committed. In mtg if you like say black/red the 'meta' might make that really weak so t obe compeditive you have to play specific decks. Also it gets boring facing the same decks with only minor varients.
I don't see how they're that different:
- Yes you can play your Salamanders and Eldar in 40k tournaments, you just have to go through a lot more trouble than the guy playing Mech IG.
- Yes you can still play your Elfball and Spiral Tide decks in MtG (legacy) tournaments, you just have to go through a lot more trouble than the guy playing Merfolk.
- No you are right in that your favourite red-black ogre-themed deck won't fare very well in a tournament.
- but that's also true for your pet necron army sporting 30 Pariahs.
- Yes it is boring to play against the same couple of decks all the time. But at least there's almost always 10-15 different decks with top shots at the prize. With another 15-20 decks in the tier 2
- in contrast to the 5-7 different top tier and the other 10 tier 2 army-builds 40k has.
Phototoxin wrote:Seriously guys get to the WOTCdecks site and somewhere like www.magiccardmarket.eu and try and price up that top deck. You CAN play warhammer for less than that!
Seriously guys get to the army lists forum and somewhere like www.gamesworkshop.com and try and price up that top build. You CAN play MtG for less than the price of 1 tank!
I don't really see your point there.
Competitive anything is bound to become expensive. And competitive 40k and MtG are in the same cost-ballpark (even though I play and win competitive MtG with a $70,- deck atm). So everyone should just do whatever he or she likes, big difference it makes not.
happygolucky wrote:So I have heard a LOT of bad press for it but why dose it have bad press, isn't it simpily a wargame with cards? (I feel like im going to get lectured now...)
so why is it? also if you have had bad experiances with it post it here.
Cheers to all comments.
It is the same as with every other game: If you've got the money you can push the boundaries. I got into magic early on when the Unlimited set and Arabians were readily available. For a few years (up through Homelands I think it was), I was an avid collector and had full sets of everything (except Legends which was just near impossible to complete). I eventually burned out on the collectible aspect of the game and stop trying to "get 'em all". My own personal negatives at this stage:
1) The collectible aspect is tiresome, though after market card prices are no where near as insane as they were back when MtG was still pretty new.
2) The colors just don't feel really unique anymore. Early on the colors were very distinct from each other and offered very different playing styles. Now you can do just about everything in every color....meh.
3) Because of the jerk-holes through the years I can't really play with most of my cards in any pseudo official events because they are not allowed.
None of these things keep me from playing with friends and enjoying the game anyway. I just don't play in any tournies, and I am completely fine with that.
I do miss the earlier days when rare cards really were somewhat rare and in a local tourney you could succeed while playing a deck made up completely of common cards. That was always fun, especially when opponents pushed you to play for ante. Never lost anything important to me at all, but actually gained quite a few decent rares and uncommons in the process. I do have to laugh when I think back to some of the big bad cards that were banned in earlier tournement settings. Nowadays you have cards in the game that combine the excessive abilities of multiples of those cards and no one bats an eye. Shows how things change...
TiB wrote:Competitive anything is bound to become expensive. And competitive 40k and MtG are in the same cost-ballpark (even though I play and win competitive MtG with a $70,- deck atm). So everyone should just do whatever he or she likes, big difference it makes not.
Exactly. It is not as if either hobby is entirely more sensible then the other. You don't have to spend too terribly much on either one, and you have to option to go crazy and spend a lot to be competitive for either one.
As a casual player I obtain a card base by drafting for $10 a night or through trades, buying (good) 5 cent commons, or just pulling cards out of the huge collection my friend has. (Also, I feel like everyone I know who plays magic has at least one friend with a huuuuge collection of cards.)
Also, as a casual player of warhammer I can validate throwing down maybe $100 to start my army and be entertained by the hobby for at least an entire year. A years worth of nightly entertainment seems for a $100 also seems pretty cheap to me.
Phototoxin wrote:BUT while Salamander marines might not be 'top tier' at the moment, they will still be decent. Eventually eldar will get a new codex. You can be faithful and committed. In mtg if you like say black/red the 'meta' might make that really weak so t obe compeditive you have to play specific decks. Also it gets boring facing the same decks with only minor varients.
I don't see how they're that different:
- Yes you can play your Salamanders and Eldar in 40k tournaments, you just have to go through a lot more trouble than the guy playing Mech IG.
- Yes you can still play your Elfball and Spiral Tide decks in MtG (legacy) tournaments, you just have to go through a lot more trouble than the guy playing Merfolk.
- No you are right in that your favourite red-black ogre-themed deck won't fare very well in a tournament.
- but that's also true for your pet necron army sporting 30 Pariahs.
- Yes it is boring to play against the same couple of decks all the time. But at least there's almost always 10-15 different decks with top shots at the prize. With another 15-20 decks in the tier 2
- in contrast to the 5-7 different top tier and the other 10 tier 2 army-builds 40k has.
Phototoxin wrote:Seriously guys get to the WOTCdecks site and somewhere like www.magiccardmarket.eu and try and price up that top deck. You CAN play warhammer for less than that!
Seriously guys get to the army lists forum and somewhere like www.gamesworkshop.com and try and price up that top build. You CAN play MtG for less than the price of 1 tank!
I don't really see your point there.
Competitive anything is bound to become expensive. And competitive 40k and MtG are in the same cost-ballpark (even though I play and win competitive MtG with a $70,- deck atm). So everyone should just do whatever he or she likes, big difference it makes not.
The point was is that you can use GW minis from the days of rouge trader and still be able to use them while with MTG you will pay A LOT of money for a deck that lasts for 6 months.
Skriker wrote: 1) The collectible aspect is tiresome, though after market card prices are no where near as insane as they were back when MtG was still pretty new.
What was personally big turnoff for me was the expansion policy they adopted after Alliances. There were just too many friggin' expansions, new ones coming up like every three months. It burned out the game real quick for me and it felt like they were jumping the shark and cashing on the game's popularity. Plus, at about that time, card design went south with many really unimaginative new cards, and even card art became pretty boring after they dumped their original artist cast. I'm totally out of touch about the present situation.
What I feel as a shortcoming of MtG is that even in friendly games, power creep can set out really quickly. Many more powerful decks were such that they could totally lock your own deck down, after which game became just insanely boring as you couldn't do anything. Even if you agreed on not going all WAAC and just have fun & games, power level between the decks could be considerable. This is why I liked limited environment as that actually gives some challenge about how to build and play your decks and not just spam the killer combo ad nauseum. I feel that tabletop wargames are just much more 'forgiving' in this sense than MtG.
Another thing we did a lot was team games. 2 vs 2 with random pairings was insanely fun, games had ebb & flow and cards which had no use on duels were suddenly quite useful. You had things like animated Aladdin's Lamps crushing your enemies.
Sounds like there are quite some old geezers on here reminiscing about the time cards were 3 cents per booster and a dime for a starter and still you got an ounce of gold in every pack. Also you had to walk uphill against the wind both ways for 5 miles to get yourself a pack but back in those days we didn't complain much sonny, you were happy with what you got.
Seriously though, too many expansions, too little expansions, worse card design, those are all valid opinions (though not mine). But to say the card art got worse? That's GOT to be the nostalgia glasses...
and not just spam the killer combo ad nauseum.
Are you sure you're not in the scene anymore? Ad Nauseam is actually a key card in the top combo deck in Legacy .
TiB wrote:
Seriously though, too many expansions, too little expansions, worse card design, those are all valid opinions (though not mine). But to say the card art got worse? That's GOT to be the nostalgia glasses...
I liked the pre-5th Edition card design. Sure, some of the artists were pretty crappy. But the card pictures were CLEAR. At around 5th Edition they moved to standard fantasy art, which is great in poster size, but looks like crap when shrunk to postage stamp size.
And good luck trying to convince anyone that the new Pokemon-style frame design is an improvement over the classic one.
Magic top decks can sometimes be expensive, like the infamous Cawblade build of recent times, but some are also dirt cheap. Jund was less than 200 dollars and was the best deck in its format. Ravager affinity, considered one of the most broken decks in standard history, went for 100 bucks. And decks that aren't tier 1 in standard usually go for less than 200.
Casual? Most casual decks (Save those based around Sneak Attack, Slivers, or Doubling Season) don't crest 100, and even the dedicated ones rarely reach the price of even a small Warhammer force. The main exception is EDH, but EDH decks last forever, and EDH is fun as hell.
Besides, this is a Warhammer forum. Are you seriously complaining about prices? Magic decks are much cheaper than Warhammer armies unless you want to go very competitive (And even then, they come out close to the same).
happygolucky wrote:The point was is that you can use GW minis from the days of rouge trader and still be able to use them while with MTG you will pay A LOT of money for a deck that lasts for 6 months.
Play Legacy or EDH, problem solved; neither of those formats rotates sets. I'd say Modern too, but Modern is a new format and so its banlist is still malleable (So you might invest in a deck and then get it banned after one tournament).
Really, the only Magic formats that rotate sets are Standard (Already discussed), Block (Not that popular), and Limited (Which costs a dozen bucks to play for a night in, and you get cards for it). Everything else, use whatever terrible Alliances cards you like.
Backfire wrote:And good luck trying to convince anyone that the new Pokemon-style frame design is an improvement over the classic one.
It looks about a thousand times better for Gold, Black, and Green, that's for sure. Old Gold frames were more muddy-brown, while old Black and Breen frames had that stupid "parchment" look that was a cool concept but made the colors clash.
I do prefer old Red, White, and Blue frames, but seriously, Eighth Edition was years ago, I got over it.
My issue was that they alway eratta the best cards once some-one figures out how a certain combo is massively powerful and it gets spammed.
Then they drop a new set that just trumps everything they eratta'd.
helgrenze wrote:My issue was that they alway eratta the best cards once some-one figures out how a certain combo is massively powerful and it gets spammed.
Then they drop a new set that just trumps everything they eratta'd.
They've stopped doing that. WotC knows that people don't like power level errata, and so it's changed to "ban or nothing" most of the time. There's four main exceptions.
Time Vault was erratad countless times, since it's incredibly broken and its wording is very unusual. I think it's now restricted, but it's banned pretty much everywhere but Vintage. Nobody knows how the hell Time Vault is supposed to work, and pretty much each of its potential wordings has possible insanity.
Lotus Vale/Lion's Eye Diamond were errata'd in an attempt to have them match their previous function instead of turning as broken as Black Lotus; while I think it's stupid, it does mean that I get to play Lion's Eye Diamond in EDH now without getting called for cheese.
The last exception is creature type errata; some creatures have been given additional creature types. This was done for flavor reasons instead of flavor reasons; for example, Homarid Warrior wasn't a warrior before its errata, and none of the human cards were human before Mirrodin errata. The changes didn't do much at a tournament level, but there's a lot of casual games affected by it.
You'll never see a card errata'd for power level reasons today, only banned.
Skriker wrote:2) The colors just don't feel really unique anymore. Early on the colors were very distinct from each other and offered very different playing styles. Now you can do just about everything in every color....meh.
Skriker
Thisthisthis
I started back in prophecy, and it was enjoyable in a collectable aspect, and how colors were unique. "What's that you say? Red is big on destroying things? Cards that nuke the whole board and hurt everyone? I GOTTA GET ME SUM DAT"
So I made my red deck, and all was well. Then they started mass producing multicolored cards, and it just got worse and worse until I bailed out. Also, while warhammer might be expensive, paying a premium for plastic models seems a better deal then paying a premium for paper. At least my warhammer army could survive a flood.
Skriker wrote:2) The colors just don't feel really unique anymore. Early on the colors were very distinct from each other and offered very different playing styles. Now you can do just about everything in every color....meh.
Skriker
Color boundaries were less distinct early in the history of the game. There was no real color pie at the time outside of some vague concepts. That's why cards like Red Elemental Blast/Blue Elemental Blast/Apocalypse were created. Red, Green, and White got more abilities, but that's because initially they were horribly limited, while Blue and Black could just do anything in the game (Including direct damage, mana production). While the first three colors gained more, the second two lost some, until they were fairly balanced (Although Red and Green still have less variety than Black, Blue, and White).
Necroshea wrote:Thisthisthis
I started back in prophecy, and it was enjoyable in a collectable aspect, and how colors were unique. "What's that you say? Red is big on destroying things? Cards that nuke the whole board and hurt everyone? I GOTTA GET ME SUM DAT"
So I made my red deck, and all was well. Then they started mass producing multicolored cards, and it just got worse and worse until I bailed out.
Prophecy is generally considered one of the worst sets in the history of the game, with absolutely nothing new or interesting and a horribly low power level; only Homelands and Fallen Empires solidly beat it. The first six sets that focused on multicolored (Invasion block, which started right after Prophecy, and Ravnica block) are, in contrast, some of the most popular and well-reviewed sets of all time, with healthy tournament environments and tons of new concepts like Split and Hybrid that opened new design space.
So you have a right to your opinion, but it certainly isn't a majority one. Mono-Red decks are still very popular today (In fact, one of them won the latest Starcity Open for Innistrad), so it's not like multicolored cards are everywhere. The newest set has a grand total of one multicolored card, and it has some fun Red cards that kill everything (Like Rumbling Temblor, Blasphemous Act, and Balefire Dragon).
Skriker wrote:2) The colors just don't feel really unique anymore. Early on the colors were very distinct from each other and offered very different playing styles. Now you can do just about everything in every color....meh. Skriker
Color boundaries were less distinct early in the history of the game. There was no real color pie at the time outside of some vague concepts. That's why cards like Red Elemental Blast/Blue Elemental Blast/Apocalypse were created. Red, Green, and White got more abilities, but that's because initially they were horribly limited, while Blue and Black could just do anything in the game (Including direct damage, mana production). While the first three colors gained more, the second two lost some, until they were fairly balanced (Although Red and Green still have less variety than Black, Blue, and White).
Don't know how things are now, but early on, Black was very limited: it had no way of getting rid of enchantments or artifacts. A mono-black was extremely vulnerable. Ditto for Blue, which though could at least Counter them.
Green could do anything in the game, though some abilities were very cumbersome to use or limited. Problem for Green was that it had LOT of creatures, but few of them were any good: result of faulty design strategy which assumed that card rarity would actually mean something.
Molten Butter wrote:
Necroshea wrote:Thisthisthis
I started back in prophecy, and it was enjoyable in a collectable aspect, and how colors were unique. "What's that you say? Red is big on destroying things? Cards that nuke the whole board and hurt everyone? I GOTTA GET ME SUM DAT"
So I made my red deck, and all was well. Then they started mass producing multicolored cards, and it just got worse and worse until I bailed out.
Prophecy is generally considered one of the worst sets in the history of the game, with absolutely nothing new or interesting and a horribly low power level; only Homelands and Fallen Empires solidly beat it. The first six sets that focused on multicolored (Invasion block, which started right after Prophecy, and Ravnica block) are, in contrast, some of the most popular and well-reviewed sets of all time, with healthy tournament environments and tons of new concepts like Split and Hybrid that opened new design space.
Fallen Empires was a decent expansion, it was underpowered but had some good cards and well made theme. Homelands was awful, poor design and just one good card (Autumn Willow).
Backfire wrote:[Another thing we did a lot was team games. 2 vs 2 with random pairings was insanely fun, games had ebb & flow and cards which had no use on duels were suddenly quite useful. You had things like animated Aladdin's Lamps crushing your enemies.
We've played a lot of 3 on 3 and 4 on 4 games and nothing shuts those dominating decks down better than having multiple opponents. That deck that makes it impossible for your opponent to do anything against when played one on one really just annoys everyone and results on you getting stomped to death by 3 opponents at once when used in 4 on 4.
Never *ever* bring a permission deck to any game that is not one on one, unless you really like the abuse you will take.
Skriker
Automatically Appended Next Post:
helgrenze wrote:Chaos Orb was the teacher of that lesson.
Chaos Orb was an awesome fun card to play with, though. Always a hoot when you think you have your perfect throw and your opponent blows the card back on to your side of the table and you screw yourself. That was always so much fun!
It's going to sound mean, but 99% of the major complaints you hear about magic design are from people who never got deep enough into magic theory to understand what's behind them.
The vast majority of things I see in this thread either never actually happened or happened 10+ years ago.
Also having played competitive magic AND 40k, I can absolutely say magic is cheaper, in both the short term AND the long term, and I even maintained 3 or 4 standard decks at any given time.
It's going to sound mean, but 99% of the major complaints you hear about magic design are from people who never got deep enough into magic theory to understand what's behind them.
this
Once you really delve into game design and theory you'll find that magic and its cards are a lot more sound design-wise than 40k (can't speak for fantasy).
Yes, there have been mistakes, but bear in mind that magic releases 600+ new cards every year, each of which can be combined with the 12.000+ already existing cards. This compared to GW which releases 2 new codices, about 40 unit entries (if I'm generous) every year, where every unit entry can only be combined with the other ~20 in its dex.
happygolucky wrote:So I have heard a LOT of bad press for it but why dose it have bad press, isn't it simpily a wargame with cards? (I feel like im going to get lectured now...)
.
There's always been some bad press from folks who don't like the concept, but no more than usual for any activity. I played briefly fairly early in it's history (around 1994 or so). Wasn't my thing at all as minis are the attraction to gaming for me, but no hard feelings.
A couple of my wargaming buddies recently returned to Magic after being away for a while and they are having a blast playing casually.
I do take issue with this part of your inquiry.
happygolucky wrote: isn't it simpily a wargame with cards? (I feel like im going to get lectured now...)
Here comes a small lecture
Magic is not a wargame, and certainly not a wargame in the sense that Tabletop wargaming or Tactical boardgames are wargames. Wargame boundaries are pretty wide, but even then magic is pretty far outside what is considered a wargame. Magic is a fantasy collectible card game with almost no relation to a military simulation beside extremely abstract concepts of combat.
Yeah, it's all semantics, and that it's not a wargame should not be a slight to the game. However its always good to define terms. Here's more about what is encompassed in the term "wargame"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wargaming
Rented Tritium wrote:The vast majority of things I see in this thread either never actually happened or happened 10+ years ago.
More then that. By the looks of it, most people in this thread didn't experience combo winter.
I still sometimes marvel at the stupidity behind a few card designs in the Urza block; it's like they were asking for what they got. Take Palinchron, for example: The thing practically has "infinite mana engine!" scribbled onto the card. And it's one of the least objectionable broken cards from the Urza block!
Or how about Tinker, aka "Mana costs? Card resources? Feth that, let's let you play any artifact in your deck at any time for three mana!"
If you have a group that you play friendly games with, then you can have a good way to waste tons of time. We have about 7-8 folks that get together at a house, buy some boosters, and have a small draft. We used to play Elder Dragon Highlander alot since it was a fun way to use all our old cards (still have tons of stuff from 5th to 6th Edition and blocks. MtG is good for quick pickup games, easy to carry a couple of decks with you.
The bad:
If you are thinking about playing in tournaments, then you can easily spend more money than on GW, and have a lot less to show for it. Yeah, a new Codex might screw a unit over and you will need to make an adjustment to your list. But a new block in MtG can instantly invalidate one third of your current cards. Big cards can
If you think that GW or other tabletop games are bad about net-listing, then MtG will really rub you raw. Everyone tries to copy the latest tournament build if you are competing. I feel that MtG has a higher proportion of TFGs than other games, but that might just be my meta.
I still play it with friends, but I got out of the tournament scene a long time ago.
The main thing I like about MtG is that its more tightly balanced and the devs will write about what motivates them to make a card cost x, with y stats and have z ability.
Sometimes they make guffs, less so now than in previous years (Sharazad anyone?), but even when I'm not fully grasping the logic behind certain cards I know that they have at least done a mathematical analysis of the card, and that they are somewhat consistent to a system of design logic and that somebody has done the editor's role and examined the thing with some common sense.
Now GW on the other hand pretty much says "No Comment" to nearly any question regarding design logic and testing, often this goes for fluff too: we get things like the DSing Landraider, TWC, Mandrakes, Vulkan, Spiritual Liege, The Blood Blood of Blood (I'm fine with this being used for Khorne), Wolf nail clippers/hair ornaments/24 hour deodorant, too much of the GK codex.
Yes WotC does produce a hobby that challenges GW for hungriest cash furnace. But at least MaRo isn't going to allow a Matt Ward mistake get by.
I get the same from 40k players at events and local groups.
Trying to justify either fandom is superior to the other is pointless, the same type of people are found in both: Geeks and its a said fact that many people who are geeks have no "social intelligence" as the psych majors in my classes describe it, thus they tend to come off as barely human due to prioritizing their hobby over hygiene, diet or laundry.
Having played both 40k and magic, I'd say the money investment is similar. 40k has a much much much higher cost of entry and magic has a higher maintenance cost.
If you properly watch prices, stay ahead of the curve and buy the right things before they get hot and sell your old stuff BEFORE it rotates, you can get your magic spending down pretty low. It's perfectly reasonable to play the PTQ circuit for a few hundred dollars per year. That's way less than most 40k players spend.
Also, people are quick to harp on rotation for killing your investment, but not everything rotates. Legacy staples and standard legal dual lands always rise in the long term.
And honestly, jockeying to stock up on the next big thing before it rises in price is actually a really thrilling aspect of the pro game. I consider it to be a legitimate part of the experience.
That said, I've found the community for 40k to be on average more concerned with having fun than magic players. It's not better, just different. Sometimes I want to min/max and play a strong game and it's much much MUCH harder to get my 40k game up to that level than it was with magic.
Rented Tritium wrote:If you properly watch prices, stay ahead of the curve and buy the right things before they get hot and sell your old stuff BEFORE it rotates, you can get your magic spending down pretty low. It's perfectly reasonable to play the PTQ circuit for a few hundred dollars per year. That's way less than most 40k players spend.
[...]
And honestly, jockeying to stock up on the next big thing before it rises in price is actually a really thrilling aspect of the pro game. I consider it to be a legitimate part of the experience.
You can even put that more strongly. For a while I was able to play competitive magic and actually turning a profit by staying really tight on the prices (and realizing Tarmogoyf's potential ahead of the curve).
It was fun to do, it felt like playing stockbroker . But I can also really appreciate the calm waters of warhammer. Yes it's generally expensive but at least I have the peace of mind that (barring price-hikes) I will be able to buy unit x for the same price next week as I do today.
I wouldn't call the speculation aspect of Magic fun. It can actually be really stressful, unless you're doing long-run speculation on obvious stuff like dual lands.
AvatarForm wrote:Walk into a local MTG comp and you can physically feel the waves of BO, desperation and tragedy emanating from the MTG tables...
No thanks.
Dear God, you mean they're gamers? Who would have known!
Here's a tip: Next time you go to your LGS to play whatever game you like, bring a gas mask.
TiB wrote:[It was fun to do, it felt like playing stockbroker . But I can also really appreciate the calm waters of warhammer. Yes it's generally expensive but at least I have the peace of mind that (barring price-hikes) I will be able to buy unit x for the same price next week as I do today.
Yeah price-hikes not withstanding!
I still occasionally buy magic boosters to add to my collection, but I just got tired of the collectible aspect of it. When the Axis and Allies mini game was first being marketed it was not supposed to have a collectible aspect. I was excited and looking forward to it and then suddenly it is collectible. Yay... Worse units like T-34 tanks which were a dime a dozen in the war were set up as rare and hard to find items. WTF? No thanks!
I guess for me the real question is why does every game have to appeal to every gamer, and why does it need to appeal to each of those gamers for the same reasons? Firstly not everyone needs to like a game or play it. Secondly in a group of 10 players you could likely get 10 different reasons as to why they like that game...or the other way why they hate that game.
Like warhammer, then play it. Like Magic then play it. Like 'em both, then play them. I play both games the same ways: with friends and not in official tournements to appease my own desires and interests in the games.
There is no real hate, for it. WoTC has pushed FNM ( friday night magic) for a long time, to introduce people to a tournament enviroment.
You meet new people play new decks, ( because really playing against your best buddies mono white life gain deck for the 1000th time isnt that much fun)
It has a competitive nature built into it,
Clearly defined rules, tournaments being supported, and one tournament type leading to another.
In MTG the "fluff" is hardly a part of the playing experience most of the novels are just terrible ( there are exceptions, ) so it doesnt come into play, it iis MUCH easier to start playing magic, as it is
A. cheaper
B quicker ( no paint, no modeling my deck will look just like everyone elses except that one guy with 40 foils in his deck)
c. Quick pick up games.
I like MTG a lot. Its fast based and requires a lot of thinking and strategy to play. Its also really easy to start, since you can just buy an starter or event deck (if you like challenge). Though now days it has become really competitive in standard format, but if you like to just play for lolz then Elder Dragon Highlander (commander) is the game for you. I've started an G/W human deck because of two things:
1.I wanted to compete against other deck with an unique deck of my own (deck spamming is )
2.I like challenge, and MTG is a perfect game for that.
3.The deck costs over 100€ but is really flavourful and fun to play. I can also attend to tournaments with it.
I have pretty fun friends, who all play MTG but fortunately don't spam a lot. MTG is a great game, but its not for everyone due to its difficulty and somewhat expensive nature.
The new modern format plus legacy are both getting very popular, so there's no longer a single dominant format, this means the price of singles for standard has dropped slightly.
I like Magic because it is a very tight ruleset. They run tournaments very effectively. They cater to the hardcore tournament players and the casual players at the same time.
Yes, it can be very pricey. I happen to be one the "lucky" ones with access to all the OLD stuff, so primarily play Vintage, where I don't need to add new cards to my collection all that often. Standard players are churning out a ton on new cards every few months. But at least they can also usually resell at full value or even HIGHER, which is unique.
I'm getting back into it again... mostly just online though. Loving Innistrad right now.
I never did get the hang of deck building. I play with premades now.
There's some weird stigma with MTG that I sort of don't understand. It can be applied to most any other game but for some reason amongst people I game with MTG is considered the worst of them all.
At tournament level, players spend more on a deck per release or season than many 40k players do (I've not known ANY miniatures players to drop more than $3000 on an army for one tournament. I've known several M:TCC (Magic: The cash cow) players whom did.).
This also runs the risk at the larger events of having your expensive pile of cards stolen (like the estimated $30,000 USD valued tier 1 deck stolen at GenCon this year).
why it is great: it is fun, the rules are fast, the game is rarely boring, the strategies are many, the balance is important around the factions in each edition.
why i stoped: at the start, to get a good deck you needed a lot of cheap cards strategic assembled together, some not so cheap to add the sauce, and normally a small bunch of rare costly cards to act as key factor of your strategy. That was fine, and a good deck could be built with 300 U$.
Today, each edition bring a new powerfull bunch of rare cards who auto-win the game, some common cards are so strong as old rare ones, and the real competitive decks have tons of the rariest costly cards on them (that can cost over 50 U$).
Sadly, 40k is slowly becoming something like that... and im afraid...
You're not buying a $3000,- deck for one tournament. Most players will build up their collection of power over many years and then have the pieces to build all manner of vintage decks.
And even if one were to drop that kind of cash for a single tournament, the resale value is 100%.
I find a $30.000,- deck hard to believe. Short of playing with graded power and blue hurricanes I don't even see how it would be possible (at market prices).
Everyone here seems to focus on tournament magic, while it's the casual magic that I have most fond memories of. You don't have to buy $50,- cards to beat your friends. I've built lots of fun decks for under $10,-.
Indeed. Casual magic is what most people play in my experience and it's a fun game. I played in university briefly and I was always impressed at the design of the game. In the end though, I found CCGs aren't my thing, but Magic is king for a reason.
TiB wrote:I find a $30.000,- deck hard to believe. Short of playing with graded power and blue hurricanes I don't even see how it would be possible (at market prices).
While unlikely, I dont think its out of the question. In my experience, elitist MtG players fething love to spend stupid amounts of money on cards that are rarer. Either signed, altered, foreign or what have you.
I'm taking a break this year for personal reasons, but I've been playing magic for the past 10 years. It CAN become expensive if you want to compete in tournaments, but if you play friendly games then there is no reason you have to spend more than ~$40 for a decent, fun deck.
I share a collection with a friend of mine, and aside from power nine, have pretty much everything. I absolutely LOVE magic. Its so deep and strategic that I haven't lost interest after 10 years. I love competitive and casual magic, they are 2 different things entirely. In the next year I would really like to make a run at the Pro Tour. For those that don't know, its basically professional MtG.
My absolute BIGGEST gripe with 40k (started playing early this year) is the goddamned rules. They can be so convoluted at times and there is no official word from GW about clarification. "Roll on it"...FFS are you kidding me? I realize its supposed to be more casual but there shouldnt be this many issues with conflicting rules. If there is ever a rule in question in MtG rules, it will get answered. There is only ONE case of WotC not clarifying rules that I've ever heard of (because it involved really old, confusing cards that no one plays with).
chromedog wrote:At tournament level, players spend more on a deck per release or season than many 40k players do (I've not known ANY miniatures players to drop more than $3000 on an army for one tournament. I've known several M:TCC (Magic: The cash cow) players whom did.).
This also runs the risk at the larger events of having your expensive pile of cards stolen (like the estimated $30,000 USD valued tier 1 deck stolen at GenCon this year).
That's not standard though. Prices like that can only exist in legacy or vintage, which could be compared to apocalypse.
In standard season, players are not spending more than 300$ on a deck and they are more than likely selling 200+ of that to pay for next season.
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TiB wrote:I find a $30.000,- deck hard to believe. Short of playing with graded power and blue hurricanes I don't even see how it would be possible (at market prices).
Certain legacy decks can get there if they're full of promos and beta.
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Steak wrote:
My absolute BIGGEST gripe with 40k (started playing early this year) is the goddamned rules. They can be so convoluted at times and there is no official word from GW about clarification. "Roll on it"...FFS are you kidding me? I realize its supposed to be more casual but there shouldnt be this many issues with conflicting rules. If there is ever a rule in question in MtG rules, it will get answered. There is only ONE case of WotC not clarifying rules that I've ever heard of (because it involved really old, confusing cards that no one plays with).
I want Matt Ward to sit down for a long chat with MaRo.
Renter Tritium wrote:Certain legacy decks can get there if they're full of promos and beta.
No they can't. I stated in my post that I was going by the cheapest versions of cards. And even without that, only vintage has any kind of shot at those prices.
As you can see, the most expensive deck in the list, Team America, doesn't even hit $1900. You could create a more expensive deck by chucking expensive cards together, but $1900 is about the most you'd be paying for a competitive deck.
I myself, playing too little to justify having 30 or more $50+ cards lying around, sold off most of my legacy collection and now solely play Dredge, which you can put together for a hefty $150,-, and just last week t4-splitted a sizeable tournament.
Now as for vintage, I admit I'm less at home there then in legacy but I took what I thought to be the most expensive competitive deck, Stax (originally $t4ks, the $4k solution), and calculated its +- worth using the most pimped out versions of everything. So beta's all around, foil and asian wherever possible (because who doesn't love paying $150,- for a $3,- card), judge gifts etc.
At didn't top $14.000,-. A lot of dough for 75 pieces of cardboard sure. But not even half of $30k.
The only way you could go higher is by including graded cards, for example the PSA 10 Lotus that's been on eBay for some time for $100k. But that would be silly, and you wouldn't play with them because they're in their cases.
I've started to warm up to the idea of peasant tournies (whatever it's called, using only commons), but none of my friends are game. It gives me a sad face.
Steak wrote:My absolute BIGGEST gripe with 40k (started playing early this year) is the goddamned rules. They can be so convoluted at times and there is no official word from GW about clarification. "Roll on it"...FFS are you kidding me? I realize its supposed to be more casual but there shouldnt be this many issues with conflicting rules. If there is ever a rule in question in MtG rules, it will get answered. There is only ONE case of WotC not clarifying rules that I've ever heard of (because it involved really old, confusing cards that no one plays with).
I agree that if you have to have a rule in your rules that says if there is a disagreement about the rules roll it off, then you aren't writing tight rules. As for the ONE case you are refering to in Magic I do play with those cards. The majority of my cards are from Alliances or earlier, with a smattering of a booster box here or there of others since then. Mind you I don't let some confusing cards mess with the fun, though.
Skriker
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Necroshea wrote:I've started to warm up to the idea of peasant tournies (whatever it's called, using only commons), but none of my friends are game. It gives me a sad face.
Back when magic first came out I *only* played in local tournies with a common deck. Never cared one iota when I had to deal with the "I'm searching through your deck for the card we are playing ante for" types either. They would flip through the deck and then whine that it was all commons. Shut them up right straight especially when I had a green common Bear up for ante while they actually had a rare card for ante without me cheating and trying to force them to play ante for a specific card. Won plenty of rares that way and really angered the jerky players who were just trying to rip people off.
I used to love Magic the Gathering. However, I have now completely quit due to both the game mechanics and fluff.
As for the game, I still find it fun casually, and fun new multiplayer systems have been made for that type of play. However, on both the casual, and ESPECIALLY, the tournament levels, MTG is a game where the biggest wallet wins. While Warhammer may have some imbalances, at least there's a point system. MTG is horribly unbalanced in that you have to be serious about it and financially committed to do well.
On terms of fluff, the industry went from establishing interesting settings with good stories of the inhabitants interacting with the world to centralizing EVERYTHING around a few individuals called Planeswalkers. While different planes and the ability to travel throughout the mutliverse has always been an important concept in the game's history and having some of the early important characters be planeswalkers, I've found it dry that the story has reduced to an elite few with god-like abilities instead of a host of new characters with each new setting. Anyway, time to get off the soap box.....
Deep Throat wrote:MTG is a game where the biggest wallet wins. While Warhammer may have some imbalances, at least there's a point system.
I totally respect your opinion, but I have to disagree.
Yes, some of the top tier decks/cards can get expensive. But Wizards doesnt set that price, they sell all their cards for the exact same price inside a booster pack. The price of the cards is dependent on the market and what deck is popular at the time. Remember Baneslayer Angel? It used to be called walletslayer because they were ~$50 a piece and you HAD to have 4 of them. Now they're ~$5.
GW on the other hand dictates their own price for their minis, which is definitely overpriced. A lot of people speculate (I haven't been playing long enough) that when they release a new codex, they purposely make units that were worse in the last one, that you had less of, better, so you have to buy them to have better units. A big reason a lot of people play is only for the faction/fluff that they like.
Personally, 40k is very fun, but not a very good game.
Steak wrote:I totally respect your opinion, but I have to disagree.
Yes, some of the top tier decks/cards can get expensive. But Wizards doesnt set that price, they sell all their cards for the exact same price inside a booster pack. The price of the cards is dependent on the market and what deck is popular at the time. Remember Baneslayer Angel? It used to be called walletslayer because they were ~$50 a piece and you HAD to have 4 of them. Now they're ~$5.
GW on the other hand dictates their own price for their minis, which is definitely overpriced. A lot of people speculate (I haven't been playing long enough) that when they release a new codex, they purposely make units that were worse in the last one, that you had less of, better, so you have to buy them to have better units. A big reason a lot of people play is only for the faction/fluff that they like.
Personally, 40k is very fun, but not a very good game.
But the more boosters you buy the bigger chance you have of getting those better cards, which has always been a big part of Magic. If you had a lot of money you could buy a ton of boosters and usually end up with all the cooler cards from the latest set. Still though in my experience the impact of this was limited by casting costs and the like and the mechanics for the game. At least in the older sets a more powerful card had a higher casting cost and was harder to get on to the table when you really wanted it. I found that TSR's old Spellfire game was much more prone to the "the guy who bought the most cards wins" syndrome because there wasn't really much difference between playing one card or another in the mechanics which meant that if you had better cards you could more easily dominate the game. Of course Spellfire is long dead and buried, but magic is still going strong.
I agree with your comment about 40k. It is defiinitely spot on calling 40k very fun, but not necessarily a "good" game. Its rules are not necessarily bad, but they are poorly written and left too open ended. You'd think after 5 editions of 40k and 8 editions of Warhammer Fantasy they'd have figured out how to write detailed and "specific" rules to keep the over table arguements to a minimum, but alas not.
Skriker wrote:But the more boosters you buy the bigger chance you have of getting those better cards, which has always been a big part of Magic. If you had a lot of money you could buy a ton of boosters and usually end up with all the cooler cards from the latest set.
One of the more unique aspects of magic is that even if you dont have the cards that are going for top dollar from a set, you can still do well with cheaper decks (obvisouly depending on the tournament format and your opponents). As mentioned earlier, Dredge is much cheaper than other decks in its format and still as effective. I was playing standard right around the time jace 2.0 came out and easily beat the U/W control decks with a R/W runflare trap deck. The entire deck was about the same price as one Jace.
Like you said as well though, even the expensive uber cards are still fairly balanced. Wizards playtests very, very extensively. Most of what I'm talking about is very dependent on other factors. Like the cards in the format, the current metagame, your opponents skill vs yours, and just luck.
Deep Throat wrote:On terms of fluff, the industry went from establishing interesting settings with good stories of the inhabitants interacting with the world to centralizing EVERYTHING around a few individuals called Planeswalkers. While different planes and the ability to travel throughout the mutliverse has always been an important concept in the game's history and having some of the early important characters be planeswalkers, I've found it dry that the story has reduced to an elite few with god-like abilities instead of a host of new characters with each new setting.
As a matter of fact, with the fluff reboot/turnover during Time Spiral they severely reduced the power of planeswalkers. They used to be god-like beings with the power to raze a planet. Now they're just ordinary individuals that happen to be able to skip between worlds (this spark comes with an amount of spellcasting talent, but certainly not as much as it used to be).
The main difference between the old way and the new way is that it used to be 3 'world'-books per cycle, now it's 1 world-book per cycle and 1 planeswalker book. So yes, they focus more on the individual 'walkers and less on the worlds, which is a pity, as the world-trilogies used to really give an in-depth look at the world they were on (the Ravnica-cycle is still one of my favourites among all fantasy books). The planeswalker books are ok too though, and are still less centered around an individual than the old-old books, where literally 'everything' was first about Urza and then Gerrard + posse.
I play casual MTG at the FLGS after the 40k gets packed up for the day. About once a Year, I'll buy the new Black/green deck (same colors I've been playing for about 8 years) for about 10-12 bucks at walmart. And if I can't afford to buy models at the FLGS this visit (or if they just don't have any I want) I'll pick up a pack of cards.
My Warhams is my game of choice though. the Magic Players will be there all night, the 40k guys have to be home by dinner or the wives will yell at them.
Honestly, it's the one nerd-ish game all my friends got into and are playing. I wish more were richer/interested in 40k, but Magic is fine as well. We always have a blast playing it, though.
Iur_tae_mont wrote:I play casual MTG at the FLGS after the 40k gets packed up for the day. About once a Year, I'll buy the new Black/green deck (same colors I've been playing for about 8 years) for about 10-12 bucks at walmart. And if I can't afford to buy models at the FLGS this visit (or if they just don't have any I want) I'll pick up a pack of cards.
My only problem is that I can't play casual MTG at my FLGS as they still impose the current card allowance rules even in the casual play times, which pretty much keeps me out of the equation, as my decks contain cards running all the way back to the Unlimited set and Arabians.
My friends and I are getting the decks together again, though, so magic time is starting to happen more often again. Have 6 decks built right now, and working on getting together a few more.
Iur_tae_mont wrote:I play casual MTG at the FLGS after the 40k gets packed up for the day. About once a Year, I'll buy the new Black/green deck (same colors I've been playing for about 8 years) for about 10-12 bucks at walmart. And if I can't afford to buy models at the FLGS this visit (or if they just don't have any I want) I'll pick up a pack of cards.
My only problem is that I can't play casual MTG at my FLGS as they still impose the current card allowance rules even in the casual play times, which pretty much keeps me out of the equation, as my decks contain cards running all the way back to the Unlimited set and Arabians.
My friends and I are getting the decks together again, though, so magic time is starting to happen more often again. Have 6 decks built right now, and working on getting together a few more.
Skriker
If they are nazis about enforcing the format restrictions, you should try to get them to play EDH. Its very fun and incredibly easy to build decks for, because it uses pretty much everything except unglued. If you dont know the rules I could link you.
I started playing magic around revised and loved it, I would play with friends into the night and sometimes the morning many a year till after college. With the advent of Kawagazi or whatever it was called I reallized Wizards was going to go out of their way with every set to completely change the game and I was no longer interested in changing my deck to match that.
Power creep didn't help and games being over in two to four turns in the normal meta didn't make we want to play the game any more. I liked a fun game to chit chat with friends while you played. It turned into a tourny game, I didn't care and stopped playing right then. I recently sold a bunch of old cards along with a black/white touch of everything else deck I had that I had spent years collecting to start 40k.
Iur_tae_mont wrote:I play casual MTG at the FLGS after the 40k gets packed up for the day. About once a Year, I'll buy the new Black/green deck (same colors I've been playing for about 8 years) for about 10-12 bucks at walmart. And if I can't afford to buy models at the FLGS this visit (or if they just don't have any I want) I'll pick up a pack of cards.
My only problem is that I can't play casual MTG at my FLGS as they still impose the current card allowance rules even in the casual play times, which pretty much keeps me out of the equation, as my decks contain cards running all the way back to the Unlimited set and Arabians.
My friends and I are getting the decks together again, though, so magic time is starting to happen more often again. Have 6 decks built right now, and working on getting together a few more.
Skriker
The players around here are kinda like that, but I tell everyone beforehand "Hey, this is a Current Black/Green deck, but I swapped out one of the monsters fot Golgari Grave Troll(my fav card in the game) Is that ok?" If not I swap it out for a more current card that fits the deck (since this one is a Morbid Deck, I'll usually switch out for a critter with Deathtouch)
Since my FLGS doesn't really carry Tau or Daemons, I usually buy a pack of cards (or the new deck when a series comes out) and usually have a good collection to choose from.
Steak wrote:[If they are nazis about enforcing the format restrictions, you should try to get them to play EDH. Its very fun and incredibly easy to build decks for, because it uses pretty much everything except unglued. If you dont know the rules I could link you.
Already familiar with it, but still get fed up with silly deck building restrictions. So I play with friends and as I said the playing is getting busy again. We just go through phases and magic is waxing right now and heading to high sanction.
Meh, I started playing casually when they started making complete theme decks, and when they stopped so did I. I have no desire to buy a bunch of booster backs where only a third of the cards are worth anything to me, them go through the hassle of trying to trade off what I don't want. Likewise, I have no desire to pay rediculous prices for individual cards.
Maelstrom808 wrote:complete theme decks, and when they stopped so did I
?
They have never stopped doing that. In fact, the last few years they've gone overboard with making theme decks going from just a few theme decks per set to show the mechanics off to having event decks (precons that are actually not terrible), premium all-foil decks, planeswalker v. planeswalker decks and special multiplayer expansions.
Actually got to play 4 games of Magic last night. Was very happy. Helping teaching a friends son how to play too. Showed him how quickly things can change in a game of magic when he gloated that he had 44 life (from an annoying aura card that gave him 4 life whenever he attacked or blocked with the enchanted creature) and I killed him in 4 turns from that point. Needless to say he was not happy. He'll be a good player eventually. He already has a pretty devious mind, but his decks rely too much on big heavy hitters that will crush you if the game goes too long. I try to make decks that have some heavy hitters included, but don't rely on them solely to get the job done. He has already come very far and it is interesting watching him speed through all the deck building phases that we all went through when we were new to the game. It is nice to see his fresh excitement for the game and it is really generating a lot of new enthusiasm for us old salts now too.
Might have to break out my decipher Star Trek cards and my Mythos cards again soon. Getting the CCG playing bug again.
Maelstrom808 wrote:complete theme decks, and when they stopped so did I
?
They have never stopped doing that. In fact, the last few years they've gone overboard with making theme decks going from just a few theme decks per set to show the mechanics off to having event decks (precons that are actually not terrible), premium all-foil decks, planeswalker v. planeswalker decks and special multiplayer expansions.
Just took a look and sure enough, there they are. 4-5 years ago I looked for some and there were none to be had. Looks like it might be time to head down to the local shop.
It's probably already been said, but the expense of the game and the level of douche-tastic behavior from some competitive players cannot be stressed enough. Ultra rares were the breaking point for me, as it forced me into making a choice between spending the same price to buy several different units of minis or a single card that would rotate out of play in a year or two.
grayshadow87 wrote:It's probably already been said, but the expense of the game and the level of douche-tastic behavior from some competitive players cannot be stressed enough. Ultra rares were the breaking point for me, as it forced me into making a choice between spending the same price to buy several different units of minis or a single card that would rotate out of play in a year or two.
Like I just said
Steak wrote:One of the more unique aspects of magic is that even if you dont have the cards that are going for top dollar from a set, you can still do well with cheaper decks (obviously depending on the tournament format and your opponents). As mentioned earlier, Dredge is much cheaper than other decks in its format and still as effective.
I know the exact type of douche you're talking about. I see them everywhere though, you cant pin it just on magic. 40k has its share of douches that get up tight about fractions of an inch, WYSIWYG, rules interpretations etc. Video games has them too, actually, almost ANY game you play you'll find them. As with anything else, it depends on who you know and where you play.
Obviously, I'm trying to defend magic here, as its dear to my heart. It's one of my favorite games of all time.
Steak wrote:I know the exact type of douche you're talking about. I see them everywhere though, you cant pin it just on magic. 40k has its share of douches that get up tight about fractions of an inch, WYSIWYG, rules interpretations etc. Video games has them too, actually, almost ANY game you play you'll find them. As with anything else, it depends on who you know and where you play.
Sadly this is true. I have found douchey players for pretty much every game I have ever played. They are a subset of gamers in general so one cannot be surprised to find them in groups for all games. My favorite douche was someone who ranted at a friend's well painted army because he didn't flock his bases. The guy ranted on and on about it and then started pulling out his own minis that looked like a 3 years old had thrown up all over them instead of really trying to paint them, but he *did* have flocked bases. Just made me laugh really hard. How can someone who's army looks like so much baby vomit have the audacity to complain that someone else's army, that looks really good, didn't have flocked bases. Just takes all kinds I guess.
Just started getting into Magic after a little dabble a few years ago.
Much easier than the Star Trek and Star Wars CCGs. I loved the Star Wars one, but damn it was complicated and confused with all the expansions and rarely used rules.
Magic seems good, have found a couple of people to play with and the wife is well into it so good points all round.
Magic is a really fun game. Im not really into competitive game, but I do have a semi-competitive standard deck since my friends usually want to win at all cost. They are good sports, but sometimes they get a bit annoying. I love making themed decks, so EDH is like God send for me. I hate players who only make decks in order to win or just annoy the out of other players. If its competitve play then Im fine with it and I only blame my self if I loose. But if its just friendly games, then douches who come and play just for gak and giggles make me angry. Im currently running a G/W Human standard deck and EDH dragon deck. I win with them sometimes, but I dont take pride if I win somebody because I know that theres always someone better than me
TiB wrote:^ congrats. You won't be sorry. It's in the gaming hall of fame for a reason.
Currently I'm using a red or red-black deck, while the wife uses various combinations of blue/white/black.
Generally my first turn move is a land and immediately put down a goblin fireslinger which usually gets a groan across the table. Pretty quickly I start getting out the berserkers and ogres using their bloodthirst and do as much damage as possible before blue/white get out all their nasty spells. This has been amazingly effective with the small numbers of cards we have so would be a bood way to go for a booster draft. But for constructed decks I imagine the lack of control spells would hamper Red.
Friend bought us a couple of large packs for christmas and we spent a lot of time playing either MtG or the Game of Thrones boardgame. We also got a couple of blocks of commons, with a few uncommons and rares, from Magicmadhouse to bulk out our stuff too.
Yeah the first period after (re)discovering magic is the best .
If you have a group that starts at the same time it's really cool to see the metagame evolve. First everyone plays their slow big creatures deck (I don't care if it costs 8 mana, it's a 7/7!), then everyone will discover control decks to deal with those, then everyone will get fast aggro to deal with the control decks etc.
Howard A Treesong wrote:Just started getting into Magic after a little dabble a few years ago.
Much easier than the Star Trek and Star Wars CCGs. I loved the Star Wars one, but damn it was complicated and confused with all the expansions and rarely used rules.
Magic seems good, have found a couple of people to play with and the wife is well into it so good points all round.
I really liked and still enjoy the original Decipher next genCCG. It played differently enough from magic at the time, but also intuitively enough on its own that it was a good game. When Decipher did Star Wars I was thrilled, SW geek that I am, but I hated just about all of the game play mechanics. It was almost as if they were trying too hard to be different and came up with a really weird and not quite so intuitive way to be different.
Skriker wrote: It was almost as if they were trying too hard to be different and came up with a really weird and not quite so intuitive way to be different.
I had this very much with the LotRccg. You had a good part of your deck and an evil part of your deck, and they were mixed together and you had to assemble the fellowship and walk it across different sites or something while you had your orcs to stop your opponents fellowship which he could then stop with the allies he played. It was really confusing
The only thing wrong with it really is hat they are running dry with ideas for new mechanics; I don'tthink they should try to get new ones every block because some are really weak..
I like the game. I'm not gonna spend huge amounts of money on a small number of cards, but I will continue to buy and play the game. It's fun, and like other wargames/games, allows me to get together with other gamers and just have some fun.
Son_Of _Deddog wrote:The only thing wrong with it really is hat they are running dry with ideas for new mechanics; I don'tthink they should try to get new ones every block because some are really weak..
Agreed. It seems that sometimes, they find a mechanic that works really well as is nicely balanced. But, most of the time, the mechanic is really weak and only works in fun "theme" decks. Occasionally, a mechanic will be completely OP and will drastically change the entire metagame (until it gets restricted or banned), but that's really rare these days.
that's because you play standard, where wizards cycles out a full block and buy stuff for an incomplete block. I play legacy, myself, since the cardpool is greater and there isn't just one top deck around.
Automatically Appended Next Post: the problem with MtG with me is that it seems like they want to emulate WoW ever since the lorwyn block.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Skriker wrote:
2) The colors just don't feel really unique anymore. Early on the colors were very distinct from each other and offered very different playing styles. Now you can do just about everything in every color....meh.
.
the only set that did that was planar chaos, with black counterspells and damnatin, as well as white burn, blue kill spells, green draw, and a red prodigal sorceror.
honestly, color doesn't even matter in legacy, just look up the dredge deck, that's what I play.
I do miss the earlier days when rare cards really were somewhat rare and in a local tourney you could succeed while playing a deck made up completely of common cards. That was always fun, especially when opponents pushed you to play for ante. Never lost anything important to me at all, but actually gained quite a few decent rares and uncommons in the process. I do have to laugh when I think back to some of the big bad cards that were banned in earlier tournement settings. Nowadays you have cards in the game that combine the excessive abilities of multiples of those cards and no one bats an eye. Shows how things change...
1. stuff that was overpowered and involved ante were better off being banned if the game were to ever become mainstream.
2. wasteland is an uncommon card, a playset of 4 goes for around $100. these days, rares are all the winning cards, since most commons suck terribly.
My only problem with MTG is the people that play it, more specifically the people that play it competitively. For example, most of the people that play at my shop only play to win, they have elitist expensive decks and are huge babies, they lose more than once they pull out of the tournament. I've beaten people before and they have been extremely rude, they complain about how bad your deck is, how much you suck, that you only won because you got lucky, that they got a bad hand, etc etc. They"ll make up any crappy excuse about why they lost and then they'll just pull out of the tourney because they didn't get into the top 3 to get prizes. The only good thing about competitive magic is watching grown men get upset when you pull off a winning combo with commons.
For example
Turn 1: Mountain
Turn 2: Mountain and Immolating souleater
Turn 3: Pay 18 life to pump immolating souleater to 10/1, swing for 10 damage and then cast fling, winning the game.
I've got that off a few times. It's a really crappy combo but funny when you get it off.
So pretty much the competitive attitude of the players and the fact that they cycle out sets all the time is why I only play casual magic, mainly commander.
FeistierErmine wrote:I think the main gripe most people have with MtG is expense. It is not a cheap game if you want to play competitively.
Warhammer isnt cheap either. Magic is a trading card game, if you have a local gaming base/club then trading the cards you need will save you alot of cash. I managed to make a deck that costs about $600 dollars by just trading cards that I didnt need. It takes a little longer and you might not get EVERY SINGLE card you want but for me its far more fun. I love MTG.
daedalus wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post: One of the guys at work is actually going to a booster tournament this weekend and was talking about the game. Apparently the rules/powers of the cards have changed so much I didn't even recognize the game. I got completely lost about the time he said '...cards upside down'.
No doubt. I played during 6th and 7th edition, stopped playing just as the invasion block came out. The difference in card strength is HUGE. Completely imbalanced if you are playing old v new but when you play proper games of legacy or constructed its fine. Its like playing 2nd ed rules v 5th ed rules in 40k. Im sure that wouldnt be a particularly even match either.
There are idiots in every hobby, including 40k. I ignore them and dont play them if I can avoid it. If it has to bee done I usually play some real cheese like turn 4 titans or my trololol milling deck. Let them cry all they want, I still come out ahead.
The biggest problem i see is that it is compared to Yu-Gi -oh
Me and a couple of freinds play at school, at lunch, i often play with one of them, and I can not count the amount of times per day people ask "Is that Yuh-Gi-Oh?" or "Are you playing Pokemon?"
Anoying, no offence to those that play it, but that used to be the thing in my area, in elmentery school we would play yuh-gi-oh, now im in high school, and people ASSUME that what im doing.
Funny story, the store i go to for friday night magic, the owner has told the 40k players not to play on the floor, kicked yuh-gi-oh players out for playing on the floor, but doesn't care when mtg players do it, simply becaus there isnt enough table space.
Phyrexia wrote:My only problem with MTG is the people that play it, more specifically the people that play it competitively.
that's unfair, I play competitive and prefer it over casual most of the time. competitive brings out strategies, especially in legacy.
Another reason to like the game. There are literally thousands of different combinations to use and that just gives me more reason to like it. I love playing against competitive players, it really challenges you and drives you to make your own deck better. Good times. I also think the attitude has alot to do with there you are playing. I spent the last 9 months in Sweden and I lived across the street from my local gaming store. Used to go there quite alot and played 12+ games of magic a week. Only one person from that group of people (approx 30-40people) was a smart ass and a terrible loser. The others were friendly and alot of fun to be around. The players age range was also huge. The youngest being 13 and the oldest 38. People were willing to lend cards to eachother for play testing, gave eachother stuff for free and expected nothing in return. We had one guy come in on his Bday and buy a booster display box that was shared between everyone who was playing at the store that day. The owners were wonderful people aswell. Great place. I just got back to Australia and two out of the three places I have visited to play I am never going back to. Typical idiots who think they are gods gift to the world and they were terrible losers. The 3rd place i went to was recommended to me by a work mate that plays and its full of great people and the place has a great atmosphere (and it has 40k!). So I think it depends on the mindset of the people you play with and the cultural mindset of the region you live in. Unfortunately theres idiots everywhere.
Also, MTG is the father of all trading cards and if you havnt noticed already 99% of all other trading card games that use the same system for the playing side of the game. Magic doesnt have a hit TV show behind it and is much more complex than other trading card games therefore people tend to not know about it. The books that are based in the MTG universe are quite good though.
Thatguy91 wrote:
Also, MTG is the father of all trading cards and if you havnt noticed already 99% of all other trading card games that use the same system for the playing side of the game. Magic doesnt have a hit TV show behind it and is much more complex than other trading card games therefore people tend to not know about it. The books that are based in the MTG universe are quite good though.
that's why it stays successful, and they didn't try to get people to buy a magazine to have an exclusive card that was mediocre at best.
Exactly. Its a wonderful hobby and I am glad that I rediscovered my love for it! Having said that im not a big fan of the current block and I personally cant wait until its over!
happygolucky wrote:So I have heard a LOT of bad press for it but why dose it have bad press, isn't it simpily a wargame with cards? (I feel like im going to get lectured now...)
so why is it? also if you have had bad experiances with it post it here.
Cheers to all comments.
I never played MTG but I have seeing tons of 2 sides of the fans argue about it.
My conclusion is, most people only have disposable income to fully support either MTG of Warhammer.
When that happens, animosity WILL ENSUE.
Soon you'll have both sides trying to insult each other with how geeky each other is, and how stupidly expensive they both are.
When in absolute truth is they are both geeky and both expensive.....
Thatguy91 wrote:Exactly. Its a wonderful hobby and I am glad that I rediscovered my love for it! Having said that im not a big fan of the current block and I personally cant wait until its over!
same here, I love it, and am glad I got back in.
i hate innistrad, it's flipping gimmick hasn't impressed me, the only good one was delver. best block, IMO was time spiral block because it was intended to be a joke set.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LunaHound wrote:
When in absolute truth is they are both geeky and both expensive.....
yes, and yet both sides argue that the other is expensive. I say that if it makes you happy, just enjoy it.
I think my favourite so far was the new Mirrodin besieged set. Big fan of that one, kinda annoyed at the fact that phyrexia won though... Wish I was still playing when the Ravnica block came out. That seemed like alot of fun, especially during booster drafts! Very challenging block I heard. Fingers crossed for a great when this one finishes.
Thatguy91 wrote:Never played Spiral unfortunately :(
I think my favourite so far was the new Mirrodin besieged set. Big fan of that one, kinda annoyed at the fact that phyrexia won though... Wish I was still playing when the Ravnica block came out. That seemed like alot of fun, especially during booster drafts! Very challenging block I heard. Fingers crossed for a great when this one finishes.
they're also apparently more valuable in russian. the new mirrodin block was alright with me. i had my kicks playing faeries in lorwyn, mean little bugs. I've haerd rumors the next block will most likely be revisiting an old plane, like kamigawa or ravnica, just hope it isn't zendikar. i also like the dredge mechanic from ravnica.
Kamigawa wasnt half bad, only got cards from Champions though so I missed the two other blocks. Big fan of the art work and the eastern feel of the whole set. Dominaria would be nice to be revisited again. Havnt been back there for quite some time.
Thatguy91 wrote:Kamigawa wasnt half bad, only got cards from Champions though so I missed the two other blocks. Big fan of the art work and the eastern feel of the whole set. Dominaria would be nice to be revisited again. Havnt been back there for quite some time.
they revisited dominaria in timespiral. futuresight was supposed to have bee composed of cards that'd be reprinted in the futur, like tarmagoyf and bridge from below.
Timespiral was quite some time ago wasnt it? Either way it will be exciting to get to a plain where grimdark isnt the overhanging theme... New phyrexia had it and now the innistrad block.. kinda over it tbh.
Phyrexia wrote:My only problem with MTG is the people that play it, more specifically the people that play it competitively. For example, most of the people that play at my shop only play to win, they have elitist expensive decks and are huge babies, they lose more than once they pull out of the tournament. I've beaten people before and they have been extremely rude, they complain about how bad your deck is, how much you suck, that you only won because you got lucky, that they got a bad hand, etc etc. They"ll make up any crappy excuse about why they lost and then they'll just pull out of the tourney because they didn't get into the top 3 to get prizes. The only good thing about competitive magic is watching grown men get upset when you pull off a winning combo with commons.
I get that kind of behavior from my current regular opponent all the time. The only difference is that he is *9* as I am helping teach a friend's son how to play magic, so I expect it and try to work it out of a 9 year old. Adults who act like that when I play them I never waste my time playing again.
The caveat here is that MtG isn' t the only game that has people like this playing it, so it isn't really an MtG problem.
Skriker wrote:I get that kind of behavior from my current regular opponent all the time. The only difference is that he is *9* as I am helping teach a friend's son how to play magic, so I expect it and try to work it out of a 9 year old. Adults who act like that when I play them I never waste my time playing again. Skriker
It's pretty hard to not play some one again when you're matched against them in the next round of FNM. When playing casual I can actually choose who I want to play with. I'm not forced to play with that guy I played last time again.
I quit MtG a few years ago due to how expensive it got. I didn't mind paying $25.00 for a Damnation or even $20.00 a pop for rare lands. However when you ran into cards like Baneslayer Angel and Jace that were $90.00 each in a standard game, well that was just too much for me.
The Mythic rares were supposed to be like Cromat from Apocalypse. Cards that were odd but not neccessarily cards you had to have in order to have a tournament/Teir 1 deck. A few sets later and a lot of the Mythics became tournament staples. Since they were so hard to get the price of these went through the roof. If you wanted 4 from opening boxes, you had to 2 cases, (12 boxes).
Now a quick browese through Starcitygames.com shows that a lot of this problem has lessened. It seems like the newest set usually has a $50.00-$70.00 card which after a year or so drops dramatically. Of course this happened with the older rares before the mythics but a card dropping from $25.00 to $5.00 wasn't nearly as bad as a card like Baneslayer which dropped from $90.00 to $5.00, (because it is not in standard anymore right?).
So basically if I want to play standard I need to pay out a lot of cash to get mythic cards that is really only useful for a year or so.
Thatguy91 wrote:Timespiral was quite some time ago wasnt it? Either way it will be exciting to get to a plain where grimdark isnt the overhanging theme... New phyrexia had it and now the innistrad block.. kinda over it tbh.
it was, and it was set in a post-apocalyptic world, many legacy staples are from timespiral block, like tarmagoyf and tombstalker. I did like the lorwyn/shadowmoor setting too, of being stuck in an eternal midsummer setting, with faeries, goblins, merfolk and kithkin, and how shadowmoor was sprung into eternal night, with all the horrors and abominations lurking about.
Howard A Treesong wrote:Decks don't need to hinge around a single card though, even the most powerful things can be countered or destroyed.
I'm off to my first tournament on Saturday for the new release.
That's common sense.
Sure a deck can be built without expensive cards, but for the most part Tier 1 decks are $500.00+ in standard. Anyone remember fairies and how expensive it was?
Regardless standard changed majorly when sites like starcitygames realized they could charge $50.00-$90.00 for a single card. Tarmagoyf proved people will shell out a lot more than $20.00 for a very good rare.
I stopped collecting Star Wars figures for the same reasons. Figures that would be rare and sell for around $25.00 were made rarer and then figure-scalpers would raid all the stores and sell them for $100.00+.
Of course this isn't the manufacturer's fault. The people at fault are the ones who pay those prices.
Lord Scythican wrote:So basically if I want to play standard I need to pay out a lot of cash to get mythic cards that is really only useful for a year or so.
Actually no. You don't need to buy mythic cards at all and can still play just as easily as anyone else can. In fact those $90 cards can and are acquired simply for the price of a booster pack every day. Those cards don't just magically appear in someone's hands to be sold for $90 after all.
As always it is the aftermarket speculators who are the whole problem here anyway. I remember way back when Ice Age was released and all the people complaining and moaning about how they had just spent $75+ for Icy Manipulators aftermarket only to have WotC release them again in Ice Age. WotC's response was: So? It isn't our fault you spent $75 on a card. Plenty of other people didn't spend that stupid amount of money for a single card, yet alone multiples of the same card.
This is why I just play with friends. I don't worry about the current mix of cards or speculators. It just doesn't enter into things for me. I didn't have to dump the game completely just to avoid those things either. I can still play with my friends and have fun and not worry about the "power deck du jour" either.
Skriker wrote:Actually no. You don't need to buy mythic cards at all and can still play just as easily as anyone else can. In fact those $90 cards can and are acquired simply for the price of a booster pack every day. Those cards don't just magically appear in someone's hands to be sold for $90 after all.
He did say 'if you want to play standard'. In competitive play it is sometimes possible to play budget, but you can't just act as if the expensive cards don't exist. And sometimes the answer to an expensive card is an expensive card. And saying that you can simply get a $90,- card by buying a $3,- booster. The chance of getting any specific mythic card is roughly 1/120.
WoTC has stopped with stuff like reprinting Icy Manipulator at its most expensive point and laughing at the complaining people. They have realised that stunts like this does not make happy customers. For a long time they have even had a no-reprint list on which they simply put all rare cards to protect peoples' investments. They relaxed this policy a bit but they're still really careful.
TiB wrote:[e did say 'if you want to play standard'. In competitive play it is sometimes possible to play budget, but you can't just act as if the expensive cards don't exist. And sometimes the answer to an expensive card is an expensive card. And saying that you can simply get a $90,- card by buying a $3,- booster. The chance of getting any specific mythic card is roughly 1/120.
There is a difference in playing and playing with the big boys and being completely competitive as well. He is complaing that he *has* to buy those cards to be able to play, but he doesn't. He can play just fine without them. Now if he wants to win every time I might agree that he may want to spend the money for them. It comes down to what is more important: Playing the game or winning the game at all costs. If play is the goal then they aren't necessary. If winning at all costs is the goal then there is no room for complaints.
Standard is actually in a really good place right now for pricing. Things that rotate often still fetch a high price for modern and extended, so selling your old stuff for the new stuff is a perfectly reasonable gameplan that keeps your costs down quite a bit.
TiB wrote:[e did say 'if you want to play standard'. In competitive play it is sometimes possible to play budget, but you can't just act as if the expensive cards don't exist. And sometimes the answer to an expensive card is an expensive card. And saying that you can simply get a $90,- card by buying a $3,- booster. The chance of getting any specific mythic card is roughly 1/120.
There is a difference in playing and playing with the big boys and being completely competitive as well. He is complaing that he *has* to buy those cards to be able to play, but he doesn't. He can play just fine without them. Now if he wants to win every time I might agree that he may want to spend the money for them. It comes down to what is more important: Playing the game or winning the game at all costs. If play is the goal then they aren't necessary. If winning at all costs is the goal then there is no room for complaints.
Skriker
Thanks for the clarification TiB. Pretty much TiB has the right of it and maybe I should have been a little more specific, but there is a big difference between:
Skriker wrote: This is why I just play with friends. I don't worry about the current mix of cards or speculators. It just doesn't enter into things for me. I didn't have to dump the game completely just to avoid those things either. I can still play with my friends and have fun and not worry about the "power deck du jour" either.
and
Lord Scythican wrote:So basically if I want to play standard I need to pay out a lot of cash to get mythic cards that is really only useful for a year or so.
What you are playing is casual not standard. It is sort of like playing Halo: CE on a big screen TV with three of your friends. You may think you are good, but when you play slayer with 13-31 other people the game changes significantly. Casual decks even using standard cards are usually eaten alive in a standard tournament. Sure you have the occasional smartass who says he can make a causal deck with commons and uncommons that beats all teir 1 decks but let us see that deck does that every week. If he does he is no longer playing casually and will have to buy $90.00 cards to adapt.
I like playing standard not casual. I don't consider "playing the game" week after week with a few friends enjoyable. In standard you need expensive cards to remain competitive week after week. In addition the friends that I would play with are pretty good guys, but in my experience those casual games that you play stay nice and enjoyable only for a small period of time. It is inevitable that someone will buy a few good rares off ebay and put them in their casual deck. Then all of a sudden they are winning more often than the others. After this a few other people buy expensive rares to stay competitive even if it is a casual game. next thing you know you are all playing FNM with Tier 1 decks and there is one guy who doesn't play any more because he is butthurt about his friends buying expensive cards and beating him all the time.
I got tired of that circle and the endless cycle of buying expensive rares, selling them before they rotate out, replacing them with even more expensive rares 6 months later.
You mean other than being a endlessly updating money driven enterprise of bs rules which constantly outdate and force out to spend more money in order to actually play in their tournaments? Or how about the fact that even if you do play in the tournaments it boils down to a calculation of strongest cards in current legal edition wins when 40k is based off chance, tactics and dedication to your army (painting and good care). Oh or how about when you buy enough 40k stuff you rarely need to buy more ?How about the standard person who play 40k vs the people who play magic being not only more mature but also intelligent than a 13 year old kid who cries to mom when he wants more card (given 40k has this too but it's rare.)
Lastly, one is produced by WTOC a company who would sooner give you a kick in the junk before they would give you customer service rather than GW who realizes customer Service is the whole basis of sales.
Skriker wrote:There is a difference in playing and playing with the big boys and being completely competitive as well. He is complaing that he *has* to buy those cards to be able to play, but he doesn't. He can play just fine without them. Now if he wants to win every time I might agree that he may want to spend the money for them. It comes down to what is more important: Playing the game or winning the game at all costs. If play is the goal then they aren't necessary. If winning at all costs is the goal then there is no room for complaints.
Ok, fair enough. Personally, I just join in with a play group if I want to play casual (and want to bust out my janky wall-deck or splice onto arcane-deck) and do weird plays. When I go to tournaments, I go all out WAAC. Although, admittedly, this is personal.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:You mean other than being a endlessly updating money driven enterprise of bs rules which constantly outdate and force out to spend more money in order to actually play in their tournaments?
Oh my, you are so right. Magic has totally bs rules, whereas 40k has the best rules ever (I mean, the 'roll off in case of a rules argument' rule is a great basis for competitive play). You have obviously never played magic before. It is one of the best rulesets in existence. There's a reason it was inducted in the game hall of fame a few years ago.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Or how about the fact that even if you do play in the tournaments it boils down to a calculation of strongest cards in current legal edition wins when 40k is based off chance, tactics and dedication to your army (painting and good care).
I'll just repeat my 'obviously never played MTG' statement'. Good decks are a carefully crafted, synergistic whole. Every card or strategy has strengths and weaknesses to be exploited. Unlike competitive 'let's just spam those Long Fangs and call it day' 40k.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Oh or how about when you buy enough 40k stuff you rarely need to buy more ?
In my experience a casual magic player will generally spend less on new cards than a 40k player will on shiny new toys. (I have been a victim of this myself). Competitive players will spend much on both systems.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:How about the standard person who play 40k vs the people who play magic being not only more mature but also intelligent than a 13 year old kid who cries to mom when he wants more card (given 40k has this too but it's rare.)
Interestingly, I have found this to be the opposite, with mtg having the players in their late teens, early twenties with a social life next to the game and wargaming having the 40-something neckbeards acting like they're 12 but that is generalization and subjective, so we'll leave it at that.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Lastly, one is produced by WTOC a company who would sooner give you a kick in the junk before they would give you customer service rather than GW who realizes customer Service is the whole basis of sales.
Yes... GW at least cares for their customers. At least they don't do all that pesky listening to their fans, taking their opinions into consideration, having the public design cards and have sneak peeks behind the scenes.
They have their return policy! Just ask and you'll receive the items you should have gotten in your box (or at least not deformed) in the first place!
Don't get me wrong, I love me some 40k. But MtG has some solid rules, and in general a nicer company (of course, they still want my money, but at least I'm happy to give it to them.)
I have to agree 100% with TiB. He obviously has played a while and knows the ins and outs of higher, competitive play and casual.
Big Mek Wurrzog, you obviously have a bias against MtG, and have not been playing long or just in the wrong circles. I really cant agree with anything in your last post.
Steak wrote:I have to agree 100% with TiB. He obviously has played a while and knows the ins and outs of higher, competitive play and casual.
Big Mek Wurrzog, you obviously have a bias against MtG, and have not been playing long or just in the wrong circles. I really cant agree with anything in your last post.
This.
Seems to be alot of hate between the two hobbies.. either you do both or you hate one of them.
TiB wrote:Don't get me wrong, I love me some 40k. But MtG has some solid rules, and in general a nicer company (of course, they still want my money, but at least I'm happy to give it to them.)
Gotta agree here. GW's customer service isn't the best. Yep if I have a problem with a purchase they fix it right up, but they also do plenty of things that make me, as a customer, scratch my head and go "huh?" regularly. MtG is what it is. Tournement environment is what it is and the reason they limit the cards available in official tournies is specifically due to years of customer complaints. I definitely don't fault WotC for the rules in Magic. I may think some of the rules they've added were kind of silly or dumb, but they were usually well written and well supported. WotC has definitely learned the skill of detailed rules after having questions arise on so many cards in their earlier magic versions and expansions. That is a skill that still *completely* eludes Games Workshop. Of course this kind of learning also takes place when a company refines and imrpoves on its rules instead of recreating them completely new for every new version of the game. When you know where the holes are and where the arguments crop up and then you fill in the holes and make the arguements go away, your customers will be happier in the long run.
Any game that requires more than just a rulebook and your imagination or more pieces than the contents of the game box definitely opens the door of possibility of massive end game costs on the table, whether through cards or miniatures. Simply if you don't want those costs then don't play those games. Or play card games that aren't collectible anymore, like the current Call of Cthluhu card game where everyone can buy all of the exact same cards as anyone else and the skill really is in building the decks to be competitive and not spending a ton of money for your deck to be competitive.
Steak wrote:I have to agree 100% with TiB. He obviously has played a while and knows the ins and outs of higher, competitive play and casual.
Big Mek Wurrzog, you obviously have a bias against MtG, and have not been playing long or just in the wrong circles. I really cant agree with anything in your last post.
This.
Seems to be alot of hate between the two hobbies.. either you do both or you hate one of them.
in all due honesty, they're both equally bad. Big Mek Wurrzog, like many here, feel the need to give opinions with very little to no knowledge of the matter. the neckbeards that play 40k say the MtG players spend too much on cards, and the MtG players say 40k is to expensive, the only ne right is the shop owner who both communities give their money to.
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Skriker wrote:
Actually no. You don't need to buy mythic cards
Skriker
fun fact: very few mythics aren't completely worthless. most mythics, like secret rares in yugioh, are only rare, and complete garbage.
Disclaimer: I don't play MTG, so I have no comments to offer on that game or the company that makes it. Or its players, for that matter. I couldn't let this one go though...
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:... rather than GW who realizes customer Service is the whole basis of sales.
Wurrzog... how long have you been playing GW games? I ask because this statement above couldn't be further from the truth. If you told me you were an alien from another planet I'd have an easier time believing that than I would the notion that GW cares for their customers at all.
H.B.M.C. wrote:Disclaimer: I don't play MTG, so I have no comments to offer on that game or the company that makes it. Or its players, for that matter. I couldn't let this one go though...
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:... rather than GW who realizes customer Service is the whole basis of sales.
Wurrzog... how long have you been playing GW games? I ask because this statement above couldn't be further from the truth. If you told me you were an alien from another planet I'd have an easier time believing that than I would the notion that GW cares for their customers at all.
well, when I ordered a box of worldwake from wizards through my LGS , and it didn't come in for 4 months, they sent me a box of planar chaos, a box of worldwake, a card book, and an apology letter. GW would never do that, ever.
remillia_scarlet wrote:fun fact: very few mythics aren't completely worthless. most mythics, like secret rares in yugioh, are only rare, and complete garbage.
But they're still so rare that even the garbage ones cost $2,- a piece, which is not much, but still annoying if you want them for your silly casual deck.
And it's the few that aren't garbage that's the problem. Once a mythic becomes playable in a competitive format, they immediately become redonkedonkelously expensive (Vengevine, Baneslayer, Lotus Cobra, Primeval Titan) not to mention that any planeswalker that gets printed, no matter how bad, starts life as a $40,- card. The only upside to mythics is that the rares got less rare, which kept the price of the second wave of fetchlands down to reasonable levels.
I still think mythics are the biggest mistake WotC made in recent years (for the secondary market, not for them obviously. Hell, Jace 2.0 on his own was probably responsible for most of the Worldwake sales)
remillia_scarlet wrote:well, when I ordered a box of worldwake from wizards through my LGS , and it didn't come in for 4 months, they sent me a box of planar chaos, a box of worldwake, a card book, and an apology letter. GW would never do that, ever.
That is awesome though. They sure do understand customer relations.
I can like any game that comes out with a purpose for collecting it; and for MTG it would be artwork alone. As far as the synergistic avenue of things, i am not here to compare but synergy and min/maxing seems to the be way to run decks in a competitive nature it's a trend since it's inception. My issue isn't with MTG it's with the ultimate goal of WOTC which is really make money and charge raising prices for less and less of the games you love like a drug addiction, sure you get more from a new card set until they re-print your favorite cards,until they make your favorite deck nerfed compared to card 5 years down the road, or until you realize you are pouring money down a drain if you feel it actually pays off as an investment. To me, that isn't concern and caring about your customer that is making a buisness transaction which grantees long term spending for the dedicated and loyal MTG fan and it's just not worth the dump of cash for me.
More power to you if you like cards that state "Cannot be counter no matter the wording" and have another card which says "Will always counter regardless of wording". I played alot of it, just not my cup of tea to let WOTC do these things and still find it an enjoyable pass time. As far as taking customer's into account I have yet to see this done until the company as a whole is hurting at the end of a year of profits... (which is why WOTC suddenly became touchy feely)
All and all i hold no illusions that i will persuade anyone here just getting my annoyances with the game and company behind it off my chest.
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remilia_scarlet wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote:Disclaimer: I don't play MTG, so I have no comments to offer on that game or the company that makes it. Or its players, for that matter. I couldn't let this one go though...
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:... rather than GW who realizes customer Service is the whole basis of sales.
Wurrzog... how long have you been playing GW games? I ask because this statement above couldn't be further from the truth. If you told me you were an alien from another planet I'd have an easier time believing that than I would the notion that GW cares for their customers at all.
well, when I ordered a box of worldwake from wizards through my LGS , and it didn't come in for 4 months, they sent me a box of planar chaos, a box of worldwake, a card book, and an apology letter. GW would never do that, ever.
Incorrect 3 people myself included had issues with GW pieces or box sets, All of these were replaced with no questions asked and delivered in 3 days for myself longest wait was 2 weeks due to a holiday for one of our gamers at my local store. If they do have bad Customer Service I have yet to find it, meanwhile WOTC never offered to re-imburse me on any screwed up cards and/or books saying it was the merchants incentive to do so (Despite them pointing me to WOTC... and i had a receipt)
I find that the tournaments limited cards to new releases mean that MtG has opportunities for new comers to jump in and not worry about two decades worth of card history they need to know about or have put on the table in front of them. Other types of games (I don't know the lingo) do let you draw upon cards from any set, so actually both crowds are served quite well.
I've going to another booster draft this weekend and here everyone has the same chance of getting decent cards out the packets. With constructed decks there is a problem that people with the most money can buy up the most powerful cards, but with booster drafts you can't to work with the cards that come out the packs in front of you. Obviously those with more experience still have the advantage but it's not based on how much money they have.
I really have no problem with any of this because there are approaches to the game that suit everyone. A lot of the mythic rares are just hugely clumsy over powered cards and plenty are not that useful, it's the Planeswalkers and a few others the get the high prices.
And as for the ages of those involved, when I was there everyone was in their 20s. There were no younger teens as with a Games Workshop, but there was one 10 year old who was lovely. And he kicked adults asses.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:My issue isn't with MTG it's with the ultimate goal of WOTC which is really make money and charge raising prices for less and less of the games you love like a drug addiction,
Yes. WotC is a company, not a charity. And tries a lot less desperately to rip us off than GW.
Let's do a little comparison;
30 Space Marines in 1988 cost $18,-, or $6,- for 10 marines. Which, with inflation, is $11,41
10 Space Marines in 2012 cost $37,25.
A 226% price increase.
Rhinos were sold in a 3-pack for $28, or $9,33 in 1988
Which, with inflation, is $17,71. A Rhino in 2012 costs $33,-.
An 86% price increase.
Now mtg:
A booster pack of Arabian Nights containing 8 cards (6 commons, 2 uncommons) cost $1,45 in 1993, so 2 packs (16 cards) cost $2,90. Which, with inflation is $4,51 in 2011.
New packs of Innistrad (15 usable cards) cost $3,95 each.
A 13% price reduction.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:More power to you if you like cards that state "Cannot be counter no matter the wording" and have another card which says "Will always counter regardless of wording".
Even though there isn't a card that says "will always counter" ,that's an easy one. 'Cannot' always takes precedence over 'Can'. So the card cannot be countered.
The rules are watertight. Yes, some corner cases will require some searching through the comp rules, but every situation is covered.
So you have a problem with that and not with the 40k ruleset?
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:My issue isn't with MTG it's with the ultimate goal of WOTC which is really make money and charge raising prices for less and less of the games you love like a drug addiction,
Yes. WotC is a company, not a charity. And tries a lot less desperately to rip us off than GW.
Let's do a little comparison;
30 Space Marines in 1988 cost $18,-, or $6,- for 10 marines. Which, with inflation, is $11,41
10 Space Marines in 2012 cost $37,25.
A 226% price increase.
Rhinos were sold in a 3-pack for $28, or $9,33 in 1988
Which, with inflation, is $17,71. A Rhino in 2012 costs $33,-.
An 86% price increase.
Now mtg:
A booster pack of Arabian Nights containing 8 cards (6 commons, 2 uncommons) cost $1,45 in 1993, so 2 packs (16 cards) cost $2,90. Which, with inflation is $4,51 in 2011.
New packs of Innistrad (15 usable cards) cost $3,95 each.
A 13% price reduction.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:More power to you if you like cards that state "Cannot be counter no matter the wording" and have another card which says "Will always counter regardless of wording".
Even though there isn't a card that says "will always counter" ,that's an easy one. 'Cannot' always takes precedence over 'Can'. So the card cannot be countered.
The rules are watertight. Yes, some corner cases will require some searching through the comp rules, but every situation is covered.
So you have a problem with that and not with the 40k ruleset?
I would search through the countless cards i use to have to prove to you older editions were not such a way. But even then the price drops are only to match an economy and lower demand as opposed to the days of it's height when it could bleed money easier. My point isn't that MTG vs 40k is better or vice versa but for your money any edition tank is a valid tank no matter where you go; thus better investment. The only way old cards even prove competitive is if a badly worded card can be seen as advantageous due to it being written before a new terminology for a event like "taping mana" or " enemy selection" was created differently.
I think too many people read this post and think I am saying "it's Evil stay away from it." when really my post is "That company has pissed me off in more ways than one, you can feel free to waste your time on it but i won't" I am a magic vet, i use to play for 5 solid years till i did math in my head and measured it against my experiences and thought "screw this, my orks have never dissapointed me [within reason]"
I completely respect your right to have an opinion. I'm not trying to argue one game being better than the other or trying to force you to like magic.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:The only way old cards even prove competitive is if a badly worded card can be seen as advantageous due to it being written before a new terminology for a event like "taping mana" or " enemy selection" was created differently.
I'm not quite sure what you meant by this. If you're an experienced magic player i'm sure you know about oracle rules and them updating older cards so that whats written on the card doesn't really matter. However, if you're talking about older cards just getting surpassed in power and quality by newer cards, then you are totally right. Depending on how far back you go, you can sift through mounds of mediocre to just plain bad cards. Whereas now, they tend to keep most sets fairly balanced.
Again, they have multiple formats to play in competitively so that older outdated cards like Squire dont have to compete with cards like Isamaru. Even so, Squire from the dark is worth $.25 just because its old. That's not a bad price for a dirt common.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:
Incorrect 3 people myself included had issues with GW pieces or box sets, All of these were replaced with no questions asked and delivered in 3 days for myself longest wait was 2 weeks due to a holiday for one of our gamers at my local store. If they do have bad Customer Service I have yet to find it, meanwhile WOTC never offered to re-imburse me on any screwed up cards and/or books saying it was the merchants incentive to do so (Despite them pointing me to WOTC... and i had a receipt)
very rarely will cards come out "screwed up", almost impossible actually, since you could tell if the cards were damaged from looking at the packaging. you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. just because you don't like the game doesn't mean that it's bad. if you don't like it, don't play.
>the only way old cards even prove competitive is if a badly worded card can be seen as advantageous due to it being written before a new terminology for an event like "tapping mana" or "enemy selection" was created differently.
you, again, have no idea what you're talking about. the "bad wording" as you call it has no impact on a card's play value. like steak said, oracle keeps a database of the errata of every card made. cards like force of will and swords to plowshares have the same playability now that they had back then.
cards that cannot be ____ are part of the game, if you have a problem with it, play another game, same with cards that are indestructable, or protected from everything. when such problems are presented on the table, rather than whine that you can't beat them, try playing around them, that's how these kinds of games work. as for cards being garbage, that's true, then again, my 4 favorite cards: putrid imp, bridge from below, breakthrough andlion's eye diamond were once considered garbage, but have become key components to a top tier deck.
as for customer service, GW isn't much better, they've been one hassle after another for my LGS.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:
Incorrect 3 people myself included had issues with GW pieces or box sets, All of these were replaced with no questions asked and delivered in 3 days for myself longest wait was 2 weeks due to a holiday for one of our gamers at my local store. If they do have bad Customer Service I have yet to find it, meanwhile WOTC never offered to re-imburse me on any screwed up cards and/or books saying it was the merchants incentive to do so (Despite them pointing me to WOTC... and i had a receipt)
very rarely will cards come out "screwed up", almost impossible actually, since you could tell if the cards were damaged from looking at the packaging. you obviously have no idea what you're talking about. just because you don't like the game doesn't mean that it's bad. if you don't like it, don't play.
>the only way old cards even prove competitive is if a badly worded card can be seen as advantageous due to it being written before a new terminology for an event like "tapping mana" or "enemy selection" was created differently.
you, again, have no idea what you're talking about. the "bad wording" as you call it has no impact on a card's play value. like steak said, oracle keeps a database of the errata of every card made. cards like force of will and swords to plowshares have the same playability now that they had back then.
cards that cannot be ____ are part of the game, if you have a problem with it, play another game, same with cards that are indestructable, or protected from everything. when such problems are presented on the table, rather than whine that you can't beat them, try playing around them, that's how these kinds of games work. as for cards being garbage, that's true, then again, my 4 favorite cards: putrid imp, bridge from below, breakthrough andlion's eye diamond were once considered garbage, but have become key components to a top tier deck.
as for customer service, GW isn't much better, they've been one hassle after another for my LGS.
I think you are clearly reading into something and inserting your own opinions on what i mean to say. An example of old school vs new school would be comparing the strength of monsters back in the day. The point is like all games people will want money for it, and i understand that. Yet the endless search for up to date cards turns into an endless search for viability within your deck if you play to try and make ends meet in a hobby by recycling the older stuff for newer at depreciated value hopefully having amassed enough to cover even 1/3 the expense of your new deck this year to be viable and get LGS credit or the like... to me it just got insulting to know the only true purpose in my cards would be if I liked the artists and their works... Because to me that just a symbol for needless excess.
40k isn't much better but at least it's a hobby, something to invest time into and get better with it from use and time. No matter what i buy it won't be wasted but i might be tempted for a sexier look
P.S. I think it's funny you say i whine like a bitch when all i've talked about is the crap about the game not mechanics really at all. But I would dare you to look into decks from the 90's and compare them again the 2000's and then conversely against it's newest things. You will find a shocking level of "ubering" over the years even from basic cards. This isn't a bad thing but its obviously my point of saying you are wasting money unless you like the artwork. So in a way, thank you for proving my point. Your last statment about how things have become top tier decks, is the exact reason why i don't play your game everyone builds identical decks if they have the money to be "top tier". If you don't see a problem with your own terminology then you won't see much point in these words I left. But honestly, I could care less; MTG isn't my game and neither is proving something moot to people who want to throw around personal insults over a rubbish game. Adieu and try being a little more butch in a unnecessary debate
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:I think too many people read this post and think I am saying "it's Evil stay away from it." when really my post is "That company has pissed me off in more ways than one, you can feel free to waste your time on it but i won't" I am a magic vet, i use to play for 5 solid years till i did math in my head and measured it against my experiences and thought "screw this, my orks have never dissapointed me [within reason]"
You obviously don't play ork speed freeks. I had an ork army at one point. It was speed freeks and I converted a whole bunch of 1/35 scale WWII half tracks into trukks and some 1/35 scale SPGs into battle wagons. I sold the army off in pieces and then was happy when the next codex came out because the army was then completely unusable. My genestealer cult army was introduced in Rogue Trader. By 3rd edition it was completely unsupported and gone. Anyone out there with Squat armies? For 3rd edition WFB I had a chaos army made up of warriors and beastmen and an "undead" army. Within 2 editions of the game neither army was usuable as built because they were both split into completely separate armies. I had the choice to stop playing my 2 complete armies or spend the cash to upgrade 1 or all of them into usable armies again. No thanks.
I think it is just kind of silly that you are demonizing WotC for doing things that GW has also done for years as well. When they bring out a new codex it is clear that they don't really care if your army will still be usable in the new version or not. In fact the more differences there are the more money they make off of you buying new replacement minis. This has been going on pretty much as long as the games have been alive. Heck in the shift from 3rd edition WFB to 4th a large number of armies and allied contingents completely disappeared from the game never to return. Heck even as recently as this year the Grey Knights codex came out along with a White Dwarf sisters ofd battle codex that completely disposed of any Daemonhunters and Witchhunters armies out there as now parts of them no longer exist as valid unit choices.
GW's methods have angered me more than any other company I have dealt with in the gaming world specifically because they do things that invalidate aspects of my armies all the time. I still have fun playing the games, though, so keep playing them. I just find it kind of funny to see you dislike WotC so much for doing things that GW has been doing far longer than WotC has.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:I think too many people read this post and think I am saying "it's Evil stay away from it." when really my post is "That company has pissed me off in more ways than one, you can feel free to waste your time on it but i won't" I am a magic vet, i use to play for 5 solid years till i did math in my head and measured it against my experiences and thought "screw this, my orks have never dissapointed me [within reason]"
You obviously don't play ork speed freeks. I had an ork army at one point. It was speed freeks and I converted a whole bunch of 1/35 scale WWII half tracks into trukks and some 1/35 scale SPGs into battle wagons. I sold the army off in pieces and then was happy when the next codex came out because the army was then completely unusable. My genestealer cult army was introduced in Rogue Trader. By 3rd edition it was completely unsupported and gone. Anyone out there with Squat armies? For 3rd edition WFB I had a chaos army made up of warriors and beastmen and an "undead" army. Within 2 editions of the game neither army was usuable as built because they were both split into completely separate armies. I had the choice to stop playing my 2 complete armies or spend the cash to upgrade 1 or all of them into usable armies again. No thanks.
I think it is just kind of silly that you are demonizing WotC for doing things that GW has also done for years as well. When they bring out a new codex it is clear that they don't really care if your army will still be usable in the new version or not. In fact the more differences there are the more money they make off of you buying new replacement minis. This has been going on pretty much as long as the games have been alive. Heck in the shift from 3rd edition WFB to 4th a large number of armies and allied contingents completely disappeared from the game never to return. Heck even as recently as this year the Grey Knights codex came out along with a White Dwarf sisters ofd battle codex that completely disposed of any Daemonhunters and Witchhunters armies out there as now parts of them no longer exist as valid unit choices.
GW's methods have angered me more than any other company I have dealt with in the gaming world specifically because they do things that invalidate aspects of my armies all the time. I still have fun playing the games, though, so keep playing them. I just find it kind of funny to see you dislike WotC so much for doing things that GW has been doing far longer than WotC has.
Gimmick armies (save the squats example) are pretty obvious when people get into them man... same as your unhinged card set you know this won't be around forever. This was also done during a time in which 40k had alot of crap it needed to trim the fat off of. Armies are dropped due to a lack of interest not the other way around which is the model I have seen of WOTC "Something popular? New release/edition hurry capitalize on something that doesn't need changes!" 40k really only swaps editions after at least a stem of 5+ years or more and normally only after complaints are too high about current editions.
I do play speed freaks (all methods of orky combat actually), the difference between your statement and MTG is that your army would still work just fine in most 40k tourneys not just not the regional sort of ones. as far as your issues with WFB honestly not connected to that, i hate the system always have and always will it's too regimented and magic OP for my enjoyment. Personally i think you are splitting hairs on this example though as modeling is something very few tourneys care about especially if you explain the need/desire for mismatched models. If i was to go to my LGS today and buy magic cards, then in less than 18 months I will see that money no longer being viable at the same LGS due to legal decks.
codexes change but if you had a genestealer cult in comparison to the most more stable options than you need to reside yourself to "change" my first army was necrons before they even had a codex man. Back in the day when you were suppose to fight them like the last chancers. I was ecstatic they got a codex and then found them to be boring and unsatisfying to me so i became an ork it was my choice to jump ship even though i had been offered other options. MTG limits your choices eventually no matter what you do unless you play to screw around, which does hold it's merits but considering it's at least 50 bucks to start a decent deck that is like buying a game which invariably will no longer be respected.... just a bad choice but people do it. This is all IMO, again i need to state this; you won't be swaying me and I am entitled to hate a company and state why when asked in a topic, please keep your aggro in check mk? I attacked a company not people.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:[codexes change but if you had a genestealer cult in comparison to the most more stable options than you need to reside yourself to "change" my first army... This is all IMO, again i need to state this; you won't be swaying me and I am entitled to hate a company and state why when asked in a topic, please keep your aggro in check mk? I attacked a company not people.
Firstly never said it wasn't your opinion and never said you weren't entiteld to it. Just that *I* think it is silly to be upset with one company and not the other since they both do similar things, which is of course *MY* opinion. So chill with the thin skin. No aggro was involved. Also never said you attacked people either...not sure what that quantifier is for. I did find your reply interesting in that you had plenty of rationalizations for whenever GW made some radical changes or disposed of things but then refuse to give WotC even the slightest bit of leeway. Of course given that Magic sales are still going strong and GW sales continue to slack off it is clear which company the general gamer market is more supporting of. I really don't feel any allegiance to either of them. They are companies that make games and as they make things I like I'll buy from them. I honestly buy more GW stuff than MtG stuff anymore, but that is because the GW side is much more than just playing the game. Modelling and painting are hobbies in and of themselves and "deck building" doesn't really come close to the enjoyment level of model building and/or model painting for me.
As for the first part I quoted why should I be resigned to change playing a generstealer cult? The original genestealer cult army list was an official army in the Warhammer 40k Compendium for Rogue Trader. It was one of the earliest official army lists for the game at that right behind Space Marines, Orks, Eldar and the fancy chaos lists. It only became a "niche" because GW didn't give it any more support after that and forced it into the niche. Then once it was a niche force it was dumped.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:[codexes change but if you had a genestealer cult in comparison to the most more stable options than you need to reside yourself to "change" my first army... This is all IMO, again i need to state this; you won't be swaying me and I am entitled to hate a company and state why when asked in a topic, please keep your aggro in check mk? I attacked a company not people.
Firstly never said it wasn't your opinion and never said you weren't entiteld to it. Just that *I* think it is silly to be upset with one company and not the other since they both do similar things, which is of course *MY* opinion. So chill with the thin skin. No aggro was involved. Also never said you attacked people either...not sure what that quantifier is for. I did find your reply interesting in that you had plenty of rationalizations for whenever GW made some radical changes or disposed of things but then refuse to give WotC even the slightest bit of leeway. Of course given that Magic sales are still going strong and GW sales continue to slack off it is clear which company the general gamer market is more supporting of. I really don't feel any allegiance to either of them. They are companies that make games and as they make things I like I'll buy from them. I honestly buy more GW stuff than MtG stuff anymore, but that is because the GW side is much more than just playing the game. Modelling and painting are hobbies in and of themselves and "deck building" doesn't really come close to the enjoyment level of model building and/or model painting for me.
As for the first part I quoted why should I be resigned to change playing a generstealer cult? The original genestealer cult army list was an official army in the Warhammer 40k Compendium for Rogue Trader. It was one of the earliest official army lists for the game at that right behind Space Marines, Orks, Eldar and the fancy chaos lists. It only became a "niche" because GW didn't give it any more support after that and forced it into the niche. Then once it was a niche force it was dumped.
Skriker
I hear what you are saying about genestealers cults, my issue is that in the big rule book iirc back in those days it was the pre-nid army. So when they announced nids why didn't you just change over to that saying your men who were changing were just converted genestealers? To me, its a pretty simple fix as nids assumed a proper role during that book and this was the main reason they were removed. All and all i am not saying 40k is a more balanced or better system its something i prefer as opposed to synergizing cards and endlessly trying to find OP combos in the deck. I mean the most annoying thing about that tactic to me is that people think they are clever looking up those combos online, or scouring through endless cards to find it... for me if i have 1-15 things to choose from and tweak them as I see fit it's much more favorable to my gameplay.
at least we agree about it from a hobby aspect that you can put more love into the game of 40k than magic.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:
P.S. I think it's funny you say i whine like a bitch when all i've talked about is the crap about the game not mechanics really at all. But I would dare you to look into decks from the 90's and compare them again the 2000's and then conversely against it's newest things. You will find a shocking level of "ubering" over the years even from basic cards.
funny you say that, because most of the legacy staples are from the 90's and early 2000's
This isn't a bad thing but its obviously my point of saying you are wasting money unless you like the artwork. So in a way, thank you for proving my point.
>you are wasting money unless you like the artwork
funny you say that, my dredge deck cost me less than, much less than 1/4/ of my blood angels army, in fact, 40k is much more expensive than magic.
Your last statment about how things have become top tier decks, is the exact reason why i don't play your game everyone builds identical decks if they have the money to be "top tier".
oh, and they don't do that in 40k?
If you don't see a problem with your own terminology then you won't see much point in these words I left. But honestly, I could care less; MTG isn't my game and neither is proving something moot to people who want to throw around personal insults over a rubbish game. Adieu and try being a little more butch in a unnecessary debate
but you keep posting in this thread..
Automatically Appended Next Post: this also talks about the players who try to say they're legacy only because they only have older cards.
funny you say that, because most of the legacy staples are from the 90's and early 2000's
This is relevant why? The point of my post was to show you an established trend nearly 30 years in the making.... not a concept of legacy I played up till 2007.
funny you say that, my dredge deck cost me less than, much less than 1/4/ of my blood angels army, in fact, 40k is much more expensive than magic.
Case in point, is that deck legal in tournaments? If so how long will it remain that way? How much will you get for trades/ selling to build your new deck. Then compare how often you need to cycle your blood angels army for parts and pieces, or to legality, or for anything in general. Simply put you sound like an adept user of MTG, If i could track down how many decks you built for X amount of years and compared it to how easily you have replaced your money it turns into you spending less immediately but WAY more overtime. It's the Investment vs Rent Arguement. The thing is if you are serious gamer of either and played both for a decade as fervently as the other you are destine to exceed my investments due to you funding MTG for each new legality swap.
oh, and they don't do that in 40k?
Once, like most games I enjoy how many times have you? I buy what i want and it stays that way.
but you keep posting in this thread...
Mostly cause someone keeps feeling the urge to say "You're stupid" rather than give my my opinion or reach an understanding some people hate your game.
Automatically Appended Next Post: this also talks about the players who try to say they're legacy only because they only have older cards.
You realize this illustrates my point perfectly right? Legacy = older card players outside of legality, while MTG constantly updates to invalidating your investment over time. So the main point of my Argument is that Magic is designed primarily to bleed you of money giving you more or less the same cards only "stronger" the newer they get. So when i state "if you honestly love the artwork then it is an investment you can apperciate cause that means you don't care about legality." as opposed to someone who likes the game for mechanics which ... well you are supporting more or less a drug habit. More power to you if you want to do it, MTG was fun but only in unofficial ways to me i eventually saw no point in endlessly spending money and wanting to focus on things that in 10 years are still just as worth my time in EVERY facet.
I did another draft this weekend with the proper release of Dark Ascension, won only one of four games. I think I had a good deck though but some really bad luck on the land. I had 17 in a 40 card deck yet struggled to draw it out which seems unlikely but there you are.
Some tremendous cards in the new set though. I'm building a red/green werewolf set that has lots of potential. I'm looking at building a red/white or red/green deck for competitive play, and try something a bit different.
I was going to do red/white but I think I need the mana ramp that only green will give. I intend to go light on the creatures, stuff mainly for mana creation (Llanowar Elves) and things that work out free (Priest of Urabrask) or something that can produce 1/1 counters. After that I would chock fill with spells to take control of the other player's creatures to attack and then have various cards to destroy them for extra damage or mana (Fling or Infernal Plunge) and a heap of Incinerate and Blasts with a couple of Increasing Vengeance to duplicate these when convenient. There's also a couple of green cards that can just cancel battle damage for a turn, in case the opponent has more creatures than I can handle.
Howard A Treesong wrote:I did another draft this weekend with the proper release of Dark Ascension, won only one of four games. I think I had a good deck though but some really bad luck on the land. I had 17 in a 40 card deck yet struggled to draw it out which seems unlikely but there you are.
Some tremendous cards in the new set though. I'm building a red/green werewolf set that has lots of potential. I'm looking at building a red/white or red/green deck for competitive play, and try something a bit different.
I was going to do red/white but I think I need the mana ramp that only green will give. I intend to go light on the creatures, stuff mainly for mana creation (Llanowar Elves) and things that work out free (Priest of Urabrask) or something that can produce 1/1 counters. After that I would chock fill with spells to take control of the other player's creatures to attack and then have various cards to destroy them for extra damage or mana (Fling or Infernal Plunge) and a heap of Incinerate and Blasts with a couple of Increasing Vengeance to duplicate these when convenient. There's also a couple of green cards that can just cancel battle damage for a turn, in case the opponent has more creatures than I can handle.
Thoughts?
The deck might be fun to play but I dont think it will be as effective as you would think. Depending on the other player for a source of damage and strong creatures can work against you in so many ways. It would be more of a troll deck than a competitive deck I think. Green/Red wolf is pretty fun though and if you wanna play a instant/sorcery based deck I would recommend mono red with goblins & goblin tokens with infernal plunge and stuff like fireball, red suns zenith and devils play. Even that isnt such a strong deck. Its hard to build a competitive deck based around aggressive dmg spells. It also depends on what format you want to play.
funny you say that, because most of the legacy staples are from the 90's and early 2000's
This is relevant why? The point of my post was to show you an established trend nearly 30 years in the making.... not a concept of legacy I played up till 2007.
because, these staples were also components of the standard metagame when they were standard legal.
funny you say that, my dredge deck cost me less than, much less than 1/4/ of my blood angels army, in fact, 40k is much more expensive than magic.
Case in point, is that deck legal in tournaments? If so how long will it remain that way? How much will you get for trades/ selling to build your new deck. Then compare how often you need to cycle your blood angels army for parts and pieces, or to legality, or for anything in general. Simply put you sound like an adept user of MTG, If i could track down how many decks you built for X amount of years and compared it to how easily you have replaced your money it turns into you spending less immediately but WAY more overtime. It's the Investment vs Rent Arguement. The thing is if you are serious gamer of either and played both for a decade as fervently as the other you are destine to exceed my investments due to you funding MTG for each new legality swap.
1: yes it's tournament legal, 2: always, 3: I can always get my money's worth back, after all, dual lands, legacy staples and such, since legacy never cycles, like standard and extended. I'd even go as far to say I've bought 4/5 of my necrons with magic cards.
oh, and they don't do that in 40k?
Once, like most games I enjoy how many times have you? I buy what i want and it stays that way.
as much as I want, I have a fluffy army, a competitive army and an iternet list. I play tournaments and such, so I understand the concept of metagame, do you?
but you keep posting in this thread...
Mostly cause someone keeps feeling the urge to say "You're stupid" rather than give my my opinion or reach an understanding some people hate your game.
you don't have to reply, you know. you basically hate this game because you don't like how things change, since that's what keeps the game fresh, and have never looked at other formats of the game, other than standard.
Automatically Appended Next Post: this also talks about the players who try to say they're legacy only because they only have older cards.
You realize this illustrates my point perfectly right? Legacy = older card players outside of legality, while MTG constantly updates to invalidating your investment over time. So the main point of my Argument is that Magic is designed primarily to bleed you of money giving you more or less the same cards only "stronger" the newer they get. So when i state "if you honestly love the artwork then it is an investment you can apperciate cause that means you don't care about legality." as opposed to someone who likes the game for mechanics which ... well you are supporting more or less a drug habit. More power to you if you want to do it, MTG was fun but only in unofficial ways to me i eventually saw no point in endlessly spending money and wanting to focus on things that in 10 years are still just as worth my time in EVERY facet.
you missed the point completely, there are other formats out there, the video is about people who would rather whine about cycling and say they only play legacy, rather than just playing the game. and as for a drug habit, are you implying that 40k isn't much different? in the end, it all boils down to: do you want your crack in paper or plastic form? since you have to buy a new codex to play in any tournament, and when a codex comes out, you buy new models, and bits and such.
You realize this illustrates my point perfectly right? Legacy = older card players outside of legality, while MTG constantly updates to invalidating your investment over time. So the main point of my Argument is that Magic is designed primarily to bleed you of money giving you more or less the same cards only "stronger" the newer they get. So when i state "if you honestly love the artwork then it is an investment you can apperciate cause that means you don't care about legality." as opposed to someone who likes the game for mechanics which ... well you are supporting more or less a drug habit. More power to you if you want to do it, MTG was fun but only in unofficial ways to me i eventually saw no point in endlessly spending money and wanting to focus on things that in 10 years are still just as worth my time in EVERY facet.
You realise 40k does this e.g
IG
SW
GK
Your next new codex where the good units are now bad and the bad units are now good.
You realize this illustrates my point perfectly right? Legacy = older card players outside of legality, while MTG constantly updates to invalidating your investment over time. So the main point of my Argument is that Magic is designed primarily to bleed you of money giving you more or less the same cards only "stronger" the newer they get. So when i state "if you honestly love the artwork then it is an investment you can apperciate cause that means you don't care about legality." as opposed to someone who likes the game for mechanics which ... well you are supporting more or less a drug habit. More power to you if you want to do it, MTG was fun but only in unofficial ways to me i eventually saw no point in endlessly spending money and wanting to focus on things that in 10 years are still just as worth my time in EVERY facet.
You realise 40k does this e.g
IG
SW
GK
Your next new codex where the good units are now bad and the bad units are now good.
Could you provide me examples? Cause all i can see is
IG: Imperial Guardsmen = more awesome, Leman russ Battle Tanks = More Awesome, Veterans = more awesome, Hell hound = more awesome
SW: Grey Hunters= More Awesome, Blood Claws= More Awesome
GK: admittedly a huge change, oh wait no they improved all models and didn't force you to cycle anything.
I am not even sure what you mean by your comment to be honest, these armies have always been decent and got stronger. These armies aren't the strongest and i have yet to met someone who wants to play an "Top Teir" Army just because they are powerful. Most are just getting back into the game, or taking it for the first time and choose a "OP Army". This has nothing to do with forcing you to cycle funds to play their current game edition the most 40k would force is setting a new codex (which are never fast so don't even try).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
you don't have to reply, you know. you basically hate this game because you don't like how things change, since that's what keeps the game fresh, and have never looked at other formats of the game, other than standard.
lol so you say "you don't have to reply" then say something like that in the next sentece? You are correct I don't need to, I am choosing to respond to someone arrogant enough to think they understand me on a forum.
Dude, figure this out "I just don't like your game or the company" I don't like to spend the money. I don't play magic at all, i sold the cards back into 2007 for 15 bucks to a friend and moved on with my life. It's cool if you are all for it; I don't I condone or support your interest in it but am aware you must really love it. That's great and all, but saying I didn't like something because of how things change? Do you even realize what you are saying? You make it sound like if i don't like Magic i have to be somehow super butthurt about some sort of tourney rulings or cards personally and wish I was better. Instead I am sitting here saying "Magic sucks IMO" and you think i am saying "edition X sucks i don't wanna play it in it's current rendition"
You know maybe it's just me but back in the day people use to say these sort of things about kids and video games and i feel honestly it still applies here. "there is more to life than this" a hobby is a hobby and you are obviously digging yours i think you should honestly see the futility in trying to get the last word in though and just leave my to my own opinion of it. If not, that's cool i just think laugh a trolly wrath and move on.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:
lol so you say "you don't have to reply" then say something like that in the next sentece? You are correct I don't need to, I am choosing to respond to someone arrogant enough to think they understand me on a forum.
Dude, figure this out "I just don't like your game or the company" I don't like to spend the money. I don't play magic at all, i sold the cards back into 2007 for 15 bucks to a friend and moved on with my life. It's cool if you are all for it; I don't I condone or support your interest in it but am aware you must really love it. That's great and all, but saying I didn't like something because of how things change? Do you even realize what you are saying? You make it sound like if i don't like Magic i have to be somehow super butthurt about some sort of tourney rulings or cards personally and wish I was better. Instead I am sitting here saying "Magic sucks IMO" and you think i am saying "edition X sucks i don't wanna play it in it's current rendition"
You know maybe it's just me but back in the day people use to say these sort of things about kids and video games and i feel honestly it still applies here. "there is more to life than this" a hobby is a hobby and you are obviously digging yours i think you should honestly see the futility in trying to get the last word in though and just leave my to my own opinion of it. If not, that's cool i just think laugh a trolly wrath and move on.
Spoiler:
haha, thought this may be funny...
but seriously, just because you dislike something doesn't mean that others can't like it, and to be honest, many magic players feel the same about 40k. too many members of the 40k community bash the Mtg community and vice-versa, the MtG community is more pleasant than much of the 40k community, who refuse to play with someone who doesn't paint their models, or doesn't paint them the way they like them to be, can't tell you how many times someone refused to play me because my necrons are mostly mechrite red. nobody really wants you to play, and could give a gak less if you ever did again. as for having the last word, I can post in threads if I want, it's not illegal.
This thread is heated and going nowhere fast. Although I disagree with Big Mek Wurrzog's opinion, he does have the right to have an opinion. It's ok that he doesn't like magic.
Can we agree that it isn't for everyone, and that it has pros and cons just like every other game? If anyone is genuinely interested in learning more about the game, or discussing it we should make a new thread.
Steak wrote:This thread is heated and going nowhere fast. Although I disagree with Big Mek Wurrzog's opinion, he does have the right to have an opinion. It's ok that he doesn't like magic.
Can we agree that it isn't for everyone, and that it has pros and cons just like every other game? If anyone is genuinely interested in learning more about the game, or discussing it we should make a new thread.
Steak wrote:This thread is heated and going nowhere fast. Although I disagree with Big Mek Wurrzog's opinion, he does have the right to have an opinion. It's ok that he doesn't like magic.
Can we agree that it isn't for everyone, and that it has pros and cons just like every other game? If anyone is genuinely interested in learning more about the game, or discussing it we should make a new thread.
agreed, well put. Thank you for being very civil in understanding it's Dis-interest>Mechanics that forms my opinions of MTG. Like i said though i understand why people like it, I really do as it is breath-taking artwork and normally pretty fun to play with friends but that is really the only way i ever enjoyed playing it was just for the laughs. As far as 40k, I here what you are saying though both our communities have pretentious douches while i haven't ran into anyone who has ever turned down playing me for painted status i know they exist and i am aware tournaments 'can' require it though it's pretty dang rare.
All and all glad someone realized I will defend my POV long as it's being improperly heard or attacked.
You realize this illustrates my point perfectly right? Legacy = older card players outside of legality, while MTG constantly updates to invalidating your investment over time. So the main point of my Argument is that Magic is designed primarily to bleed you of money giving you more or less the same cards only "stronger" the newer they get. So when i state "if you honestly love the artwork then it is an investment you can apperciate cause that means you don't care about legality." as opposed to someone who likes the game for mechanics which ... well you are supporting more or less a drug habit. More power to you if you want to do it, MTG was fun but only in unofficial ways to me i eventually saw no point in endlessly spending money and wanting to focus on things that in 10 years are still just as worth my time in EVERY facet.
You realise 40k does this e.g
IG
SW
GK
Your next new codex where the good units are now bad and the bad units are now good.
Could you provide me examples? Cause all i can see is
IG: Imperial Guardsmen = more awesome, Leman russ Battle Tanks = More Awesome, Veterans = more awesome, Hell hound = more awesome
SW: Grey Hunters= More Awesome, Blood Claws= More Awesome
GK: admittedly a huge change, oh wait no they improved all models and didn't force you to cycle anything.
I am not even sure what you mean by your comment to be honest, these armies have always been decent and got stronger. These armies aren't the strongest and i have yet to met someone who wants to play an "Top Teir" Army just because they are powerful. Most are just getting back into the game, or taking it for the first time and choose a "OP Army". This has nothing to do with forcing you to cycle funds to play their current game edition the most 40k would force is setting a new codex (which are never fast so don't even try).
You play orks and they have depreciated in ONE WAY!!
Orks have become less prominent and less able to compete with each of those codex releases.
I listed those races to show increases in power over time. Not to pick apart the power increase of each individual unit.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Could you provide me examples? Cause all i can see is
IG: Imperial Guardsmen = more awesome, Leman russ Battle Tanks = More Awesome, Veterans = more awesome, Hell hound = more awesome
SW: Grey Hunters= More Awesome, Blood Claws= More Awesome
GK: admittedly a huge change, oh wait no they improved all models and didn't force you to cycle anything.
Wurrzog please, your brazen naivety really has to end. There are a long strong of things that swing back and forth between good and crap and good again and so on for each Codex release (and re-release) dating all the way back to 2nd Ed. Please stop pretending like everything just gets better.
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:Could you provide me examples? Cause all i can see is
IG: Imperial Guardsmen = more awesome, Leman russ Battle Tanks = More Awesome, Veterans = more awesome, Hell hound = more awesome
SW: Grey Hunters= More Awesome, Blood Claws= More Awesome
GK: admittedly a huge change, oh wait no they improved all models and didn't force you to cycle anything.
Wurrzog please, your brazen naivety really has to end. There are a long strong of things that swing back and forth between good and crap and good again and so on for each Codex release (and re-release) dating all the way back to 2nd Ed. Please stop pretending like everything just gets better.
Things change with each edition, but i'm shocked you of all people call it naivety to buy models you like, not models that are currently powerful. If you like the army more often than not core choices, and HQ's will remain powerful, depending on your fluff you might be able to gauge where more of the power of something comes from (i.e. HS for guard, Elite for SW or Gk ect) but from a perspective of just buying for power you are right things will change with a codex or edition change. When the Dark eldar came out with new info they released new lines to increase productivity. My only point was that the time frames between codex and edition changes are plenty slow enough that if you dedicate to your army as a collection/investment rather than $ for Power you will always have potent choices rather than specialized ones and that most players who have played for a long time know what will age gracefully and what probably won't.
Either way I had stopped, only resumed to speak on your post but of course i understand your view just a bit baffled my point didn't get across... It was late oh well.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ChocolateGork wrote:
You play orks and they have depreciated in ONE WAY!!
Orks have become less prominent and less able to compete with each of those codex releases.
I listed those races to show increases in power over time. Not to pick apart the power increase of each individual unit.
Oh and your wrong. Blood Claws are FULL OF gak
While I won't disagree with your blood claw statement as i would personally prefer grey hunters in comparison for use I am Not sure i agree with this post. It's more because orks are kinda special in comparison to typical table top 40k tactics at this moment.At the risk of slightly derailing the topic most players prefer parking lots or mechcanized armies with mild troop caps or powerful quality units that are considered unstoppable. Orks traditional tactics excell against both these methods MANY of the new codex releases have been incredibly easy to deal with save the typical learning curve of "discovering" new tricks that might have been added. Blood angels, Grey Knights, necron and Dark Eldar haven't really been major threats to me as an ork player (these are the newest out there). Besides necrons at last getting on par with the rest of the armies after almost 15 years of a dormant codex.
I am aware most codexes though do face the things you are saying in this comment and sadly it is simply part of the game i accept, things like IOM getting more power than Xenos or Chaos *shrug* to me it's not a big deal long as it's fun but ultimately i think i would agree with you on that fact and it is something WOTC and GW would have in common is to have 'perceived" efficency jumps each time they update. My issue is the speed in which it's done as well as the requirement comparisons of the both.
As Steak said tho this really isn't helping promote anything but me re-vomitting these words. Is anyone content to just leave this be yet?
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:[While I won't disagree with your blood claw statement as i would personally prefer grey hunters in comparison for use I am Not sure i agree with this post. It's more because orks are kinda special in comparison to typical table top 40k tactics at this moment.At the risk of slightly derailing the topic most players prefer parking lots or mechcanized armies with mild troop caps or powerful quality units that are considered unstoppable. Orks traditional tactics excell against both these methods MANY of the new codex releases have been incredibly easy to deal with save the typical learning curve of "discovering" new tricks that might have been added. Blood angels, Grey Knights, necron and Dark Eldar haven't really been major threats to me as an ork player (these are the newest out there). Besides necrons at last getting on par with the rest of the armies after almost 15 years of a dormant codex.
I think the thing I dislike lately in the newer codex books is the tendency to start making it more possible to use elite or fast attack units as troops by having certain characters in a force. They made 2 troops a requirement and also require only "troops" choices to hold objectives to bring some semblance of balance back to the game and make people take more troops. Then they turn around and say "Have this special character in your army and fancy unit X now becomes a troop choice!". Feh...
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:[While I won't disagree with your blood claw statement as i would personally prefer grey hunters in comparison for use I am Not sure i agree with this post. It's more because orks are kinda special in comparison to typical table top 40k tactics at this moment.At the risk of slightly derailing the topic most players prefer parking lots or mechcanized armies with mild troop caps or powerful quality units that are considered unstoppable. Orks traditional tactics excell against both these methods MANY of the new codex releases have been incredibly easy to deal with save the typical learning curve of "discovering" new tricks that might have been added. Blood angels, Grey Knights, necron and Dark Eldar haven't really been major threats to me as an ork player (these are the newest out there). Besides necrons at last getting on par with the rest of the armies after almost 15 years of a dormant codex.
I think the thing I dislike lately in the newer codex books is the tendency to start making it more possible to use elite or fast attack units as troops by having certain characters in a force. They made 2 troops a requirement and also require only "troops" choices to hold objectives to bring some semblance of balance back to the game and make people take more troops. Then they turn around and say "Have this special character in your army and fancy unit X now becomes a troop choice!". Feh...
Skriker
I completely support this comment actually, even though i do love running Wazdakka from time to time, Though to be fair it reminds me of few magic cards from Mirrodin too :p
I've built my first constructed deck for a small tournament this coming weekend. I'm going red-white, lots of red cards to cause damage, control and sacrifice creatures and white mostly to create and pump tokens.
My list so far, runs to 77 cards of which 15 need to be the sideboard. I'm going to try a few games and see what works before then. Have to pick from what I own though, obviously there are cards I would *like* to use if I had deep enough pockets for it. 'Champion of the Parish' for a start.
Act of Treason x 4
Traitorous Blood x 2
Infernal Plunge x 4
Incinerate x 4
Galvanic Blast x 4
Fling x 2
Burning Oil x 2
Arc Trail
Curse of Bloodletting
Increasing Vengeance
Brimstone Volley
Gather the Townsfolk x 4
Doomed Traveller x 4
Intangible Virtue x 2
Thraben Doomsayer x 2
Honor of the Pure
Increasing Devotion
Fiend Hunter
Bonds of Faith
Pacifism
Guardian's Pledge
Rally the Peasants
Iron Myr x 3
Gold Myr x 3
Culling Dais
Norn's Anmnex
Looks like a good start . I'd try to streamline it a bit more before going into a tournament though. Do you have a store where you can get singles?
Now, the deck. It looks like you're taking your first steps on the well-trod path of White Weenie. Small white creatures to very quickly pummel the opponent senseless with some creature boosting thrown in there. You added a little red for a direct damage component. Not a bad strategy at all!
You do have to focus though. Start off by thinking: "what do I want my deck to do" and tailor you card choices to that. In this case; efficient white creatures (high power for the mana) and direct damage.
First, I'd take out the Infernal Plunges, you don't really need that much mana and it's just a bad card altogether.
The mana Myr are not bad per-se, but again, you don't need much mana when playing this archetype and a 1/1 body for 2 mana isn't going to cut it.
Burning Oil seems good here, but this deck is probably going to be on the offense all the time, so you won't get attacked that much and we want our burn to kill the opponent's creatures before they block.
Curse of Bloodletting is very sexy of course, but too much mana sadly.
Anyway; here's a list of what I'd do with this deck in standard on a budget (and adding a few of the rares you mentioned in your decklist).
2x Clifftop Retreat
2x Evolving Wilds -> these can become 2 more Clifftop Retreats if you ever happen to acquire them.
12x Plains
5x Mountain
4x Elite Vanguard -> 2 power for 1
4x Gideon's Lawkeeper -> tap down annoying blockers, or potentially dangerous attackers
4x Leonin Skyhunter -> flying 2 power for 2
2x Loyal Cathar -> guy with two lives, talk about efficient
4x Stormfront Pegasus -> flying 2 power for 2
4x Mentor of the Meek -> keeps your momentum going
2x Fiend Hunter -> removes annoying blockers
2x Thraben Doomsayer -> steady supply of dudes, very good with Mentor
4x Shock -> nice efficient burn
4x Incinerate -> nice efficient burn
1x Honor of the Pure -> dissynergy with Mentor, but too good not to run
2x Oblivion Ring -> for those pesky artifacts and enchantments
2x Artillerize -> for those last few points
Now, I only added 1 new rare to the mix. It is only a $0,80 card and very good in this deck. The big problem white weenie has is that it runs out of steam. Once the opponent survives the initial surge he is almost home free. This thing replaces the cards you play and so keeps your momentum going, which is very important.
If I were to do this without budgetting (not that most of them are really expensive, but they are rare) I'd add a mix of Grim Lavamancer, Champion of the Parish, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Mirran Crusader, Mikaeus the Lunarch and Curse of Stalked Prey.
Well it went pretty bad. I packed in many better cards borrowed from a friend and still got done in on the second day. My newer deck is a lot stronger but I need experience using it, as I'd never actually played against plainswalkers before and I ended up facing them two at a time. One guy I faced early on, produced two of them against me appeared to have at least six in his deck against another opponent - two in the graveyard, one on the table and three in his hand. Which I thought was a dumb way to play.
Well, like it or not it's a legit strategy.
Some time ago there was a popular tournament deck called 'The fellowship of the ring' and it featured about 12 to 15 planeswalkers in combination with Rings of Brighthearth. That allowed for some pretty silly plays.
I'm reminded of boros bushwacker. a deck that ran proficiently on smaller converted mana costs. an aggro deck that exploited figure of destiny and lightning helix.
I love MtG every time I play it. I have no doubt that if my friends played it, I'd spend nearly all my disposable income on it and so long 40k. (you know, until a new SoB range)
I still have lots of cards lying around in my bedroom, hidden in a big box. Would never throw them, not played them much in reccent years sadly as Aura isn't much of a CCG fan.
However I have a cunning plan in motion and I'm teaching the boys to play Pokemon at the moment, as they get older I'll introduce them to Star Trek, B5, Lot5r and Magic. I will get to play all of them again.
See, MDS, I have JUST gotten my 10 year old into MTG.
I played many years up until the Weatherlight storyline, and had a ball. Kept the vast majority of my themed decks when I stopped and moved the bulk of my collection on another trade site.
Now, my lil terror saw me and the wife playing one night at the kitchen table (her squirrels vs my All Foglio deck) and watched, and asked to play. Dug out the 5th ed teaching decks I still had, set her up with the Black one and the Blue one, and she smashed Dad bad.. (I didn't roll over, neither).
So, she thinks it is cool, and fun (she likes Monster High, so she wants me to make her a black/red deck that works like the show), so I got a random collection from a guy on BT.
So, I feel old now.
Can anyone explain these darn 2 sided cards? I got a handle on why there are token cards (wish there was a squirrel token, lol), but the new Keywords and flip cards etc.. What the Heck? If you have a 2 sided card, you know what you are about to draw, no? Artifact equipment?
Is there a current "living" style rulebook out there on Wizards site? I didn't see one, but don't want to have to create an account or anything like that..
Maybe an internet Glossary?
Feeling a bit overwhelmed here, got 4k new cards and am so tempted to chuck anything I don't recognize...
If you haven't played since Weatherlight (so prior to the 6th edition rules overhaul) there's quite a lot that's changed, but don't worry, it's all gotten a lot more logical and easy to understand.
As for the new flip cards; I'm really not a fan of them either. The idea is fun (you start with the first state, for example a human, then when a certain condition is met you flip the card to its other state, for example a werewolf) but the execution is flawed. It would be way more practical had they solved it like the one-sided Kamigawa-style flip cards. I think they did it just as a marketing fad.
But yeah, you can't play them without or with see-through sleeves. You need opaque sleeves or the one-sided check list found in innistrad booster packs. Or, like me, just don't play them .
As for Artifact - Equipments, those actually are pretty neat. They're like reusable enchant creatures. For example:
Obviously, you can play this card for 1. It then sits there doing nothing. Then, you can pay its equip cost (so in this case 1 again) to put it under oe of your creatures (it is now equipped). That creature now gets the equipment's effect (in this case +1/+1). Any time you can play a sorcery you can pay its equip cost again to put the equipment under another one of your creatures. Now, the nice thing is that when a creature carrying an equipment dies, the equipment just falls to the ground and you can just equip it to another creature again.
Just don't give up on it, it really is the best game I ever played and the initial discovery, or in your case rediscovery, is really the best stage of it, especially when done with loved ones.
A 2012 starter set would probably be a good place to start if you want something handy to read if you don't mind having to work through all the basics again (tapping land, playing spells, attacking etc.)
yeah Mythic rarity... I haven't really met anyone yet that thought that was a good idea. They initially promised to only use the mythic slot for truly epic cards and planeswalkers and not to print tournament worthy cards in mythic. Of course that didn't work out, with the result that some new cards reach ridiculous prices. The only upside is that rares got less rare and so are cheaper to acquire.
Planeswalker cards are pretty powerful and many decks run them. So, familiarize yourself with the rules.
They start (cast the same time you could cast a sorcery) with as many loyalty counters as that little box in the bottom right. They are permanents, but they are not creatures. They are somewhat like Legendary creatures, if two Planewalkers are in play with the same subtype, both are destroyed.
On the controlling player's turn (including the turn they are cast), they can use 1 (and only 1) power (at sorcery speed), and their loyalty counters change by the amount shown (they can't go negative). If the loyalty counters go to zero, the Planewalker is destroyed. Typically, they have 1 power that does a small effect but adds loyalty, 1 power that does a bigger effect but drops loyalty, and 1 power that does an amazingly strong effect but significantly drops loyalty (and takes more than they started with).
When other players attack, they can choose to attack either you or the planeswalker (chosen per creature, they can have some attack you and some attack your planewalker). If they attack the planeswalker, combat is as normal (you can block for your planewalker), but damage done removes counters from the planeswalker. Players can also choose to have non-combat damage effects to you effect the planewalker, also removing 1 counter per damage done (no splitting damage from a single source).
whigwam wrote:The Unglued set had a nice squirrel token
Odyssey had one as well. Sadly it was before the era of tokens in booster packs and they're both sought after and pretty uncommon so both the Odyssey and Unglued versions are worth some money (about $6,- to $8,- a piece).
whigwam wrote:The Unglued set had a nice squirrel token
Odyssey had one as well. Sadly it was before the era of tokens in booster packs and they're both sought after and pretty uncommon so both the Odyssey and Unglued versions are worth some money (about $6,- to $8,- a piece).
Oh wow... I think I've still got a bunch of those from my old Deranged Hermit deck. Also, some sheep. Time to start digging, I think.
Since I intend to only play local tournaments limited to my kitchen table, I am not gonna worry about Power Cards or Planeswalkers. I suspect that I can make totally fine decks for family game nights with uncommons and commons, and the occasional rare for niftyness. At least for the 1st several months.
I did get an idea of what my daughter likes, which is simple rules that have a component of "gotcha" to them. Her favorite cards RIGHT now, are the Prodical Sorcerer and the Control Magic cards in the ol blue deck.. kill your weak stuff and take the powerful stuff..
I dug out the squirrel deck, and realized I did at one point get the unglued squirrel token card.. so, that was a mistake on my part.
What I don't like about Planeswalkers is that so many 'competitive' decks use them, that I rather feel that anyone not taking planeswalkers will struggle to compete on an even keel. There are some terrifying non-planeswalker decks but it always seems more satisfying to win and lose games to them, they are more skillful IMO. I don't personally care for the Planeswalkers, though I have a few in my collection, so prefer to make decks constructed that work together in a way more interesting than simply trying to get out an overpowered planeswalker as soon as possible.
Generally, I think there needs to be more cards that are dedicated to removing planeswalkers in the game making them more risky to play. Currently there are few or no drawbacks to packing four Sorins or Garruks into your deck. Oblivion Ring is your best bet (Every white deck needs four of them), or Celestial Purge if against a Red/Black deck.
I started my fantasy gaming life with Magic, back during the revised set. I loved the Rath Cycle, as the characters and background were very likable. Starke of Rath was my favorite card ever printed, even if he wasn't great. I kept playing through college, when the Morridan cycle hit. I quit there-that cycle was the biggest joke with indestructible cards, and I was annoyed at the Kamigawa block too-heroes everywhere, samurai everything and flipping cards-um...no thank you. I kept playing cards no newer than Legions, and had a sick little goblin deck. Still have it. We played large, multi-player games in college and had a serious TFG there who cried when he lost. He started attacking everyone, finally got around to attacking me and I stated "Do it, and I'll swing back at you. Go bother someone else." He attacked and I nuked him with goblin grenades, mogg fanatics, and then cleared the board with a Skirk Firemarshal. I won the game and took out everyone else. But since I killed him first, he picked up his deck, called me an a-hole and stormed off. He expected large games to just kind of stagnate until everyone had a HUGE army built up, but that's how his deck thrived-I just retaliated when he expected everyone to let him do whatever he wanted.
But my 2 biggest problems with Magic are the over-powered-ness of the new cards, and that money wins the game-the better the card, the more expensive it is-rich people win big, people who don't spend as much usually lose. It's a crappy system, but somehow it works.
Also, in my area the Magic people tend the be the ones who need to learn what soap is. Warhammer people (with the exception of one) always went to the store showered, deodorized and often with a mild cologne on to be pleasant to the people around them. The Magic kids smelled like they bathed in their own urine. YMMV on this, but it's how it is in my area. It's small wonder I don't play near them anymore. Too many bad experiences and the people I used to play it with have all moved on (or we don't talk anymore).
Both have pros and cons. The problem is objectively defining them. Most people that play one or the other are too emotionally invested in their favorite game to even listen to the other side.
Which has the stronger ruleset = MTG.
The ruleset has been evolving for years. GW thinks it's a good idea to come up with a brand new ruleset every few years, instead of building on what has worked in the past. Most new game companies have learned the lesson of MTG and are striving to get to that level.
Which has more creativity built into the game = Wargaming.
Modeling, sculpting, painting, visual composition, etc... all facets of creativity that can only be replicated on a limited scale (ie:Alters)in MTG.
Competition = Equal
You will find douchebags and TFGs in both areas. Has no bearing on which game is being played. Problem is rooted in a segment of geek/nerd populace who have not learned any social skills. You'll find them at Comic-cons, superhero movie premiers, online, etc...
Expense = Equal.
The only true difference is cost upfont or cost in maintenance. MTG you can start playing @ $12. Wargames start at around $50 for skirmish or $100 for army sized. This is starting small. Each additional purchase in MTG can range from $.05 to $50 on average based on the cards, or packs bought. Each additional purchase in Wargaming is around $10 - $100 avg. based on the models.
Power creep = Equal
New cards invalidate certain strategies. New armies invalidate certain strategies.
The biggest issue between both parties is how comfortable are you with change. If you are able to accept change and evolve well then MTG is a game you'd enjoy. If you enjoy a static environment that only changes in a 5-10 year timespan than Wargaming should be your cup o' teal.
The problems with the game for me stem from expense and the statistical overabundance of childish/jerk-tastic players involved in the competitive scene. When I came to the realization that I could spend the same amount of money on a competitive Magic deck that I could build a reasonable Warmachine army (or a small-to-medium sized 40k army), I began to suspect that it was high time that I jump ship. It was after reading an article on Channelfireball from a competitive player that essentially said that if I wanted to be competitive I would find a way to buy four copies of a several hundred dollar card (Jace the Mindsculptor, if I recall correctly) or else I didn't want to compete badly enough that I finally settled on leaving Magic. In short then, it was a melding of the attitudes of the game's top players and the sheer cost of the game that alienated me.
Granted, prices of cards shift drastically over time and it may be that such ridiculous expectations are no longer placed on those that would like to play competitively, but I simply don't have the interest to investigate the matter, as I have no wish to return to the game.
grayshadow87 wrote: It was after reading an article on Channelfireball from a competitive player that essentially said that if I wanted to be competitive I would find a way to buy four copies of a several hundred dollar card (Jace the Mindsculptor, if I recall correctly) or else I didn't want to compete badly enough that I finally settled on leaving Magic. In short then, it was a melding of the attitudes of the game's top players and the sheer cost of the game that alienated me.
That's no different than what been said on dakka.
Tyranid or Sisters player asks for help to be competetive, and some one will usually respond "play a top tier army, like GK, SW, or IG
Did a draft tonight that went quite well. I usually grab quite a few rares as they go by while trying to form a deck so I came away with a lot of new cards.
It was my last Innistrad/Dark Ascension draft I think as Avacyn is coming out soon. I ended up with a green-black deck with a lot of rather expensive monsters. Fortunately the games were fairly slow allowing a fair build up of land so that after the opening stages I could afford to grind the opponent down by constantly dropping and throwing away big beasties that I would never normally use in constructed. 'Spider Spawning' came in handy too once the graveyard filled up!
Two wins, a draw and a loss. Not enough to get something from the prize pool but I did get a nifty double-sided promo token for taking part.
One thing I find different about Magic is that each release feels like an 'event' and there's a good build up and you get promos and things for taking part. It's more memorable, everything GW does just feels like they are pushing product. Also Magic suits me fine at the moment because there's a local player base, I can fit games around work and the growing pile of cards that is my collection doesn't take up much space in my small flat. I haven't seen the body odour issues or whatever others have mentioned, and everyone tonight was very nice, all the games were very pleasant regardless of the outcome and I played a few friendlies to pass the time between rounds.
Tyranid or Sisters player asks for help to be competetive, and some one will usually respond "play a top tier army, like GK, SW, or IG
It was less the advice ("play with the best cards") than the sentiment with which it was expressed. Simply telling someone that because they lack close to a grand to drop on four cards means they don't want badly enough to compete reduces the problem to a fault with the character of the player, rather than a financial difficulty on the part of the player. It's the idea that lack of money (or skill, or time, etc.) was a fault of the player as a person, rather than inexperience, socioeconomic factors, or something else, that angered me.
grayshadow87 wrote:It was less the advice ("play with the best cards") than the sentiment with which it was expressed. Simply telling someone that because they lack close to a grand to drop on four cards means they don't want badly enough to compete reduces the problem to a fault with the character of the player, rather than a financial difficulty on the part of the player. It's the idea that lack of money (or skill, or time, etc.) was a fault of the player as a person, rather than inexperience, socioeconomic factors, or something else, that angered me.
First of all, Jace has never even come close to $250,-. He was $80,- as its top and now you can get them for $60,-, or $50,- if you look good.
Secondly, that guy you talk about sounds like a giant douche nozzle and personifies the bad side of the tournament scene and it's sad that people like that chase away people like you.
You really shouldn't let yourself be pushed out of a hobby you like by someone like that.
The good thing about magic and its giant pool of cards is that every strategy has a counter (save some flukes which swiftly get banned). Yes, perhaps the most honed all-comers lists will have 4 Jace, but it's easy to build a deck with perhaps 90% of the effectivity for 30% of the cost. There's just something satisfying about offing a $80,- Mind Sculptor with a $0,25,- Oblivion Ring.
Besides, if a single card or strategy is so popular as to become 'mandatory', (usually cheap) decks that prey on that strategy immediately start popping up.
For example in vintage, where all the tfg's will tell you you need a full complement of power or you don't take it seriously I used to play a fast GR deck with Magi of the Moon, Null Rods, Gorilla Shamans, Red Elemental Blasts and a bunch of other stuff that stops artifacts, non-basic lands and blue cards. It won quite a lot, especially for a $200,- deck up against $4000,- decks.
We've been doing the Avacyn pre-release this weekend. I wasn't that keen on Avacyn, the set seems to suffer from having a lot of over costed cards and poor commons.
Did a sealed deck one day and won 3, lost 3. On the second day I paired up with my best friend for a two-headed giant. He was red-blue for early attack, deck control and supportive combat spells while I had white-green for the bigger stuff along with various things to draw lands into my hand so that we had stuff for the mid game onwards.
This went very well we won the first three games and were playing for top place but it all went horribly wrong when I couldn't draw any land at all. I was stuck with two land for the whole game and even cycling for more didn't help. Unable to play hardly a thing myself, it was left to my friend who eventually ran out of weenies and bounce spells and the damage mounted up.
That said the two-headed-giant was the most fun I've had playing Magic. The games were all incredibly tense but very satisfying. Everyone was really nice, even the more competitive players were more friendly, maybe because we all had a friend with us it felt more communal, and there's more discussion/banter, people don't end up sitting in silence.
I did the prerelease as well and was a bit disappointed. I like the set for constructed, and am excited to draft, but I feel like its a bad set to do sealed.
What it boiled down to is who got their bomb out first, or who kept it alive longest. I got no bombs in my packs, and as you said howard the commons are lacking.
Hmm, I think it's one of the better sets in a while as far as useful stuff for both my casual and competitive constructed decks goes.
It is very much possible that you found the prerelease (which is 3 Innistrad, 3 Avacyn if I'm not mistaken?) unsatisfactory as the sets are balanced around normal drafting and sealed deck (which is 1 Innistrad, 1 Dark Ascension, 1 Avacyn and 2 of each respectively). In a normal environment you've hopefully got enough workable commons from the first two sets and the last set is just to flesh it all out a bit (hence the 'bombiness' of the set).
TiB wrote:It is very much possible that you found the prerelease (which is 3 Innistrad, 3 Avacyn if I'm not mistaken?)
Actually it was 6 Avacyn, which is the reason I wasn't a fan. If it had been a mix I think that it would have helped balance things out. I totally agree about useful stuff though. There is a fair amount that I think will actually see competitive play, and there are lots of fun rares.
There's a lot of stuff that's useful in constructed, but for sealed it's rather weak IMO. The commons are often poor, there are a lot of things that are just over-costed or compare poorly to others already in standard. Certainly there are good cards, but they are mostly rares. With Innistrad and Dark Ascension you could build strong decks in draft with few or no rares. Uncommons and commons were often first or early picks.
On the other hand, I think there's a lot of potential to build certain constructed decks, my aim is a red-white human deck. I've tracked down four Champions of the Parish and these will do well in a human deck using Thatcher Revolt and things like Goldnight Commander. There is potential for a huge number of +1/+1 bonuses and counters to be quickly put all over the place.
I play casual only, just thing that my friends and I can do whenever we have a flat surface to use. I like collecting the cards, the artwork on some is stunning.
Ravnica is definitely my favorite block and I am so excited that the next block in returning to Ravnica!
Anyone else do the Avacyn Gameday? I went on Saturday with my red-white humans and came in the top four giving me some boosters and a foil promo. My best friend won though and got the playmat, for a moment it looked like we were going to be playing each other in the final!
The red-white humans are fairly fearsome and can often manage a turn three or four kill. I've not got all I want in the deck, only two Silverblade Paladins instead of four, but it's very fast and does huge damage quickly. I only side boarded once all day. There was very little blue being played as well, it seems that the fear of 'Cavern of Souls' has put people off, so no blue decks with Snapcast Mage and counter spells. That said, I didn't see that many Cavern of Souls being played.
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