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Just come back from a visit to my dad's house and after a poke around in the cupboard, I found some Magic cards. I vaguely remember buying a set that was on offer at a games store many, many moons ago (also found my Star Wars CCG 2 player set as well which was a nice bonus!). After some diligent Google searching, I have managed to track down the edition/box set that they Magic cards came from - they appear to be from the 1999 2 player starter set. Unfortunately, I just have the cards and not the rules and the extra bits and pieces that came in the box. Here is the Magic wiki page on it:
On that page there is a deck list so I made the 2 decks according to that, however, the first question is, there are an awful lot of cards left over. I seem to remember when I last played it that I sued all the cards in the set so was this correct? Are the other cards in the set simply for customising the starter sets once you become slightly more proficient? The long-term plan is for me and the wife to pick up Magic as a kick around game to play on a Friday night with a few drinks once the kids are in bed. I have the 2015 deck builder thing arriving from Amazon soon - I assume that is now the standard way for new players to get into the game as I didn't see a beginners starter set listed? I'm not worried about playing competitively or anything like that; it's purely for fun at this stage.
I don't know about that starter set, but in the past Magic has included booster packs with starters, or random rares, that wouldn't be designed to work with those decks. A tournament legal Magic deck is 60 cards. So if the extra cards are not of colors that match up with your preconstructed deck lists, then they are probably random cards that would be used for making your own deck with a larger collection.
The main advantage being that those games don't have randomized cards, so it's easier and cheaper to get a complete play set compared to Magic. They sell monthly booster expansions, to give you more options, but each one comes with 3 copies of each card (the max you can put in a deck in their games) so you only need one booster to get a full play set and none of them are required for casual play.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/04/06 18:06:44
MtG is fun but I always feel like it is sort of whirlpool. You either get dragged all the way in or you eventually escape before its too late. I definitely second looking into FFG's LCGs. If I am not mistaken, filbert, aren't you a SW fan? FFG makes a SW LCG as well as Call of Cthulhu, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and I guess now the Warhammer ones (but maybe the WHFB one is deunct?).
Check your rares. If you don't know what they are, they're the ones with the gold expansion symbol underneath the artwork to the right. Some of them may be of value. From what I understand, Starter '99 didn't really have a whole lot of good/valuable cards, but it was released just after Urza's Saga block was done which does have valuable cards
Wizards still releases intro decks, and they're typically decent gateways into standard. All the deck builder gives you is 4 booster packs (of Core M15 in this case), and a bunch of basic lands.
The game's definitely more fun with more people with organized play though. Most FLG stores host FNM mini tournaments on Fridays for standard and booster draft (most commonly).
Space Wolves: 3770
Orks: 3000
Chaos Daemons: 1750
Warriors of Chaos: 2000
Long time Magic player coming back around for another go!
On that page there is a deck list so I made the 2 decks according to that, however, the first question is, there are an awful lot of cards left over. I seem to remember when I last played it that I sued all the cards in the set so was this correct? Are the other cards in the set simply for customising the starter sets once you become slightly more proficient?
The starter sets usually set up two 40 card decks complete with basic creatures and spells and explanations of how to play. Then you usually got extra cards of semi-random order (some where always the same but later starter sets veered from this) once you wanted to move on to the more advanced rules.
A standard MtG deck is 60 minimum with no upper limit so long as you can still shuffle it. SO those extra cards are supposed to get you to that lower limit of 60. That assumption is correct.
The long-term plan is for me and the wife to pick up Magic as a kick around game to play on a Friday night with a few drinks once the kids are in bed. I have the 2015 deck builder thing arriving from Amazon soon - I assume that is now the standard way for new players to get into the game as I didn't see a beginners starter set listed?
Correct. MtG releases these "Deckbuilder" kits to bring kids and newcomers into the game. You get a bunch of semirandom cards, lands, ect. and some packs of randomness to get you started on a collection.
It's not the most efficient way of getting back, but it gets you a decent assortment. A better strategy would be to look into ebaying for 1000 card lots, especially from well established sellers.
(This is a seller selling bulk in cheap commons/uncommons/rares, ect. But it gets you a good foundation at a reasonable price).
MtG will be phasing out their Core sets (an annually released stand alone block of cards that is supposed to act as a set where constantly reprinted cards are pooled into) but each set/block usually has theme decks (a core deck plus a couple of random packs of the latest cards) and Event decks which are usually more competitive. These are great ways to launch a deck that is tighter and runs better than one cobbled together.
I'm not worried about playing competitively or anything like that; it's purely for fun at this stage.
Great! There are fun ways to play Magic. I'd say that a good way to make the game fun for everyone is to try and find themes to run by (I want a bird deck for example, or I want a witch deck) and then Magic wiki cards that fit that theme.
You can also try some of the more interesting formats of Magic that have sprung up over the last decade:
For example, each of these formats is a variant of regular MtG with unusual rules that makes the game much more interesting (such as using a Legend as a deck commander and using no more than one copy of a card other than basic lands).
I already ordered a job lot of common cards off Ebay and they arrived today - they probably aren't any good but at this point, I am aiming for quantity over quality so I have a good pool from which to build a couple of decks for me and the wife.
Question: is there some sort of online deck builder? I.E. some place where i can just type in or list all the cards I own and some sort of webby algorithm spits out a deck for me?
Manchu - I have the Star Wars CCG that was produced by Decipher before FFG got the license - bidding on some cards for that on Ebay too so I may well play that as well. The difference being however, that while I like Star Wars, the wife doesn't care too much for it hence why she prefers Magic.
Basically, I don't really have much clue beyond the fairly obvious about a) which colour(s) to specialize in b) what cards to add to those colours. It would be nice to able to tell an app or program what cards I have and for it to give me an example deck as an output.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/04/09 16:58:57
I'm not aware of an automated deck builder where you put in what cards you have and it makes a deck for you. The main purpose of deck builders is to help with your mana curve.
The old Decipher star wars game was really good, but it was also collectable with random card assortments. The FFG game is completely different. FFG also has a co-opLord of the Rings game that might appeal more to your wife if she prefers fantasy over star wars, and the new Warhammer 40k conquest game is very good. There will also be a new edition of Game of Thrones coming later this year. Like I said, the huge advantage to those games is there are no rares or commons, or uncommons, the boxes come with preset contents so you know exactly what cards you will get making it easy to get a complete set with every card made.
Back to Magic, here were the Magic World Championship top 4 decks for 1999:
Spoiler:
1999 World Championship Decks Decklist
Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
(Released September 27, 1999)
Of course most deck lists are going to be rare heavy. It can be problematic to make 2 good decks that are both competitive with one another in Magic without a sizable collection. There is also the pauper format which plays games with only common cards allowed which you might want to look into.
There is a discussion of current standard format Magic budget decks here
These would be decks that are standard tournament legal that you could take to a local shop and play without any problems.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2015/04/09 19:48:40
I actually have an absolute metric cr*pton of leftover commons and uncommons littering my house (and I do mean kilograms upon kilograms of cards here).
If you're interested, we can make a cheap dealio for those (i.e., shipping costs - I don't need anything for the cards themselves.)
So I am guessing it is a good idea to build a deck around it?
Automatically Appended Next Post: I know it is a bit cheeky but I spent an hour or so typing all my cards into the Magic Assistant thing and then have exported it as a formatted HTML file, Would be eternally grateful if some seasoned pros can cast their eye over it and suggest some decks? I am looking to build 2 decks that are reasonably close to one another in power. File is here:
