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Magic the Gathering

Discussion in 'Entertainment and Technology' started by Zen fix, Nov 3, 2015.

  1. Zen fix

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    My 11 year old son wanted to try this game so we've been trying to learn it together. Seems fairly complicated but with a lot of cool potential. We probably spent a good four hours over the weekend reading the rules, watching how-to's on YouTube and playing incorrectly. I appreciate any good tips you may have. Or, just post what it is you like about the game.
     
  2. RawringSnake

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    I was reeeeally into it a couple of years ago, but I drifted away once I realized the cyclical nature of the business side of it.

    Playing legacy is fine and dandy when you are getting started, just playing in any capacity is more than enough to be satisfied really. But once the novelty wears off and you start grasping the metagame, suddenly it matters which cards you are playing with, in which format you are playing. Suddenly, you are not so ok with being left out of the loop on the latest sets. Suddenly, legacy is not enough anymore.

    I don't know—maybe it's just my competitive nature—but a lot of the fun I derived was from studying the cards, accounting for strengths and weaknesses in the builds, coming up with strategies and countermeasures, methodically crafting decks with a clear intent, comparing builds with other players and trying to figure out (and break) their strategies based in their choice of cards. I would say 50% of the fun of MtG happens before you face an opponent. I'm exhilarated just typing about it lol. But then, reality sets in, and you see how things really work and how Wizard's of the Coast keep themselves in business.

    Because the game reinvents itself every year with new sets of cards, in the form of new developments within the lore of the game, if you don't keep up, you are out of the loop. Your strategies, your countermeasures, your builds, your cards, outdated. I'm not complaining, this system that shakes up the formula every year is what keeps the game fresh even now, almost 30 years after it first came out. Alas, it also makes it an incredibly expensive hobby to indulge in with any amount of seriousness. Prohibitively expensive in my case, it was this or giving up another hobby As much as I enjoy MtG, I enjoy other things more. You can still play just fine with the same set of cards you first bought, but you'll never be playing at the top of your game, and that's too much of a bummer for me to enjoy myself the way I used to.

    I'll come back to it, once I'm closer to a six figure salary lol

    Hope your kid enjoys it, and pray for him not to be as competitive as me. He'd either ruin the game for himself or ruin your wallet :grin:
     
  3. Kasey

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    I'd say it's like chess....

    With thousands of pieces.

    With variance.

    It's constantly evolving and changing and stays fresh. It's also a good tool for math and reasoning.

    I could talk to you about the state of modern meta games and the latest G/W megamorph standard deck but that's pretty esoteric for beginners. Kitchen table magic is the most fun.

    Take a deck. Make it. Have an epic duel. Have fun. Repeat.
     
  4. zigazigah

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    This exactly. Magic can become really obsessive and competitive, and for me it just got too expensive because no matter what format you play in, even if it's not standard, you're still gonna get bored of whatever deck you're currently running and you're still gonna wanna make a new deck all the time and then you start looking at what others are doing and you're spending a couple hundred dollars on each deck and then suddenly you're eating off the dollar menu because you'd rather buy one particular card instead of spending that money on food and proxied cards wont cut it :tears:

    Also, my thing was that I stopped having a close friend group that played when I went to college and going to card shops was, ah, lets just say a little uncomfortable as a woman lol. So I just stopped playing. I still keep up with it a little though.
     
  5. Zen fix

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    We originally bought him a single new deck, not realizing that each player needed their own. Last week my wife found him a deck builder (deck master?) set. So we are learning to build a deck as well as play the game. I kept mine simple only using Swamps and Plains for land and associated spells and creatures. I also picked a lot of low level creatures and maybe one or two "tanks" as I've started calling the big powerful creatures.
    My son was enamored with anything rare or special so picked four different lands and probably a dozen tanks. He had maybe five low level creatures. We played two games and both times I was smashing him before he could get anything on the battlefield. So we reconfigured his deck and hopefully next time he'll be more competitive.

    ---------- Post added 4th Nov 2015 at 03:12 PM ----------

    Going to lose my nerd cred here but I've never been in a Card shop. Why uncomfortable for a woman?
     
    #5 Zen fix, Nov 4, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2015
  6. Kaiser

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    To put it simply, comic/card shops are heavily male-dominated. And a great deal, not all mind you, of those in there tend to be awkward or even creepy individuals. So when a female walks in, she's not only typically out numbered, it's like the beginning of a wet dream...

    And then there's the bend-over-backwards attitude some folks can have to a woman, just because she's a woman. It can be amusing for a little bit, I assume, but it can easily and quickly become rather demeaning.




    As for Magic itself. I'll keep it simple:

    If you're starting off learning, then buying a Starter Deck is the way to go. Refer to the manual, look at and play with the cards in the Starter Deck, see how things work and flow.

    If you want to have fun, keep it basic. The more time you put into the game, the more competitive and less fun (in my opinion) it becomes. It's nice to win, but it fucking sucks when everybody picks the best/winning cards, instead of making up their own styles or strategies.

    Maybe you won't encounter that. But having played Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: The Gathering, and a little bit of the Dragon Ball Z card game, it's what I run into. More often than not.
     
    #6 Kaiser, Nov 4, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2015
  7. LakanLunti

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    I will give you some tips on how to play MtG later. But for now, all I can say is.... STAY AWAY FROM BLUE DECKS! One reason is it will cost you lots of money, second is that is has a lot of effects that are not beginner friendly.
     
  8. Kasey

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    Jace/FoW/duals/mana drain hurting the wallet?
     
  9. MtnFr3sh

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    Well, I started on my birthday really, my friends convinced me to play. At first I was like 'oh my god wtf am I doing this is the nerdiest, geekiest thing I could ever do with my time' Then they taught me how to play in literally one night.

    I have to say, because I finally found a good combination of cards. Right now my favorite is a mono colored white deck. I have things that generate soldier tokens, and several soldier cards along with good instants like Celestial Flare 'target player sacrifices an attacking or blocking creature' But, I also have a planeswalker. Elspeth. her +1 generates 3 1/1 soldiers. Plus my other creatures that give soldier type creatures +1/0's and 0/+1s And then if I draw a good enchantment, dictate of heliod. ALL of my creatures get +2/+2