Magic: The Gathering Unite!

[smashing]

I'm sure there are a lot of Magic players out there. Any recounting of your story with Magic, when you first started, which is your favourite edition and what sort of combinations you loved and hated?

I basically stopped playing before the Fifth edition. And back then, we can do evil evil things with balloon deck. Ever seen a Dragon Whelp that does 25 points of damage?

[SHODANFreeman]

Repost: I initially started around the time 5th edition came out, stopped playing after Mercadian Masques for a few years, picked it back up during Time Spiral block, and quit again at the end of Time Spiral block. Both times were because I was sick of new sets coming out way sooner than I was ready to move on to a new set.

Also tried playing in a couple casual tournaments at my local game shop during Time Spiral, couldn't stand half the people there.

With the upcoming changes to every mechanic in the game in "Magic 2010," I am so glad I quit when I did.

[MaxFan]

I played from Revised through about Urza block. Only sanctioned tournament I ever entered was Extended when the legal sets were Fifth Edition, expansions Ice Age thru Urza's Destiny and a special exemption allowing the original dual lands to still be played. I played a black aggro deck that could win on turn 2 with the right draw and managed to lose badly due to dumb play errors (why do I remember that eight or more years later?) Though my local shop did run informal drafts with the Urza sets.

I saw Time Spiral a while back and remembered lots of the cards they reprinted, also Planar Chaos had color shifted versions of many others I remembered.

I got to reading Mark Rosewater's articles about game design on the Wizards of the Coast website and that got me interested enough in what's going on to have picked up playing again a few months ago. Casual and limited formats only, who wants to pay hundreds of dollars to get a competitive Standard or Extended deck that's just going to have to be replaced within a year or two? Bleh. And I still remember how to draft enough that it almost pays for itself.

(about the M10 changes: I've noticed no practical differences coming up when I actually play for as much noise as everyone's made. Scratch that, I had one time where the change to the Deathtouch ability came up, but it was quickly resolved and not too different to matter)

I took some time to find the right place to play, certainly the first place I tried locally was not to my liking, but I found another that has better people.

--Just today played Overrun (green sorcery, 2GGG: Creatures you control get +3/+3 and gain trample until end of turn. You win the game.) so my creatures did exactly 25 damage to my opponent when he was at 25.

[Harald B]

It's been a while since I've touched Magic. I think I quit during the Masques block, increasingly disgusted with the blandness, hyping and commercialization that had been going on for a while. Yeah I'm one of those old-school players; I still remember when Ice Age was new.
My fondest memory has to be taking an all-common deck to a casual tournament attended mostly by card traders stuffing their decks with rares... and getting third place. Hilarious times.

[Megaloman]

I've been playing Magic to some extent since high school, which would be about 10 years now. The last two years have been more competitive and I started out with limited. After a while I found that I had drafted almost all the rares needed to put a few standard decks together it was like the game was reborn right there. Now I play standard and limited with some trips to extended when the ptq season calls for it.

And, oh, I got a MtG-themed birthday cake made by my girlfriend last year

[patters]

I don't play any more, I quit a bit after the end of the Mirrodin block, however I got the XBLA game recently, and despite having no customisation, it is pretty good.

[smashing]

Originally Posted by patters

I don't play any more, I quit a bit after the end of the Mirrodin block, however I got the XBLA game recently, and despite having no customisation, it is pretty good.

There's a Magic game on XBLA? Is it the standard system, with set decks?

[SHODANFreeman]

Originally Posted by smashing

There's a Magic game on XBLA? Is it the standard system, with set decks?

I think you can modify your decks, not sure because I don't own it.

[MaxFan]

I've heard of it, sounds like you can unlock new cards for your decks that let you customize them a little bit, but still you're basically stuck with the decks they give you and then get upgrades for them over the course of play.

[ShaggE]

Originally Posted by MaxFan

I've heard of it, sounds like you can unlock new cards for your decks that let you customize them a little bit, but still you're basically stuck with the decks they give you and then get upgrades for them over the course of play.

Makes me wonder what the point is. The fun in Magic was building custom decks. (as it is with any collectible card game)

Haven't played it in over a decade, though. I'm surprised it's still around.

[SHODANFreeman]

Originally Posted by ShaggE

Makes me wonder what the point is. The fun in Magic was building custom decks. (as it is with any collectible card game)

Haven't played it in over a decade, though. I'm surprised it's still around.

Actually playing with precon decks can sometimes be a lot more fun, since the decks are specifically balanced to each other.

[patters]

Originally Posted by smashing

There's a Magic game on XBLA? Is it the standard system, with set decks?

Slightly modified rules set decks with unlockable, and addable cards.

[glenfx]

Started playing around fifth edition, stopped playing after Urza's Destiny .
Bought the first magic online deck then had problems logging in my account and quit completely.

I changed most of my cards (repeated ones including lands) with different ones and built quite a library of each card so i have them stored in a card collecting book and can see all the great illustrations in them :P

I loved my Black and blue deck, my mates hated it so they started buying lots and lots of full card boxes trying to make a better deck than mine until they succeeded :P, then i started playing with a red blue deck and although i didn’t win that often it was quite the annoying kind of decks and loved seeing my friends quite mad at me until they won .

After Urza the game became quite absurd and all the rules and crazy cards just made it boring for me.
Before it was more like an rpg or true strategy game, then it became a speed kill thing, i even saw decks that could win in about 3 or 4 turns.

[Megaloman]

Originally Posted by glenfx

After Urza the game became quite absurd and all the rules and crazy cards just made it boring for me.
Before it was more like an rpg or true strategy game, then it became a speed kill thing, i even saw decks that could win in about 3 or 4 turns.

The recent years have been great and it seems that Wizards learned a lesson or two from Urza block. Now, standard decks (or type 2 as you may know them) are a lot more balanced and no particular deck is way better than the others. There's also a lot more focus on creatures, like magic used to be before the boring combo years. Personally, I'm happy that merfolk are back!

[MaxFan]

Yeah, the only thing wrong with Standard these days is you can play a card costing 1GG in your blue/black Faeries deck sideboard because the lands are so insane. But that problem should be gone in a few months and there do appear to be a variety of decks one might viably play (for those who like spending large sums of money on decks that rotate every year or two).

[Harald B]

That sounds eerily nostalgic, and not in a good way. Are those insane lands anything like this? No modern card is as unbalanced as some of the really old ones, but leave it to Wizards to bring back the worst stuff.
A few months back I got a black starter deck for free through some promotional deal. Me and my MtG veteran friends were schocked to find what's essentially a black Lhurgoyf inside. Now that was unthinkable in the old days.

[MaxFan]

No, the lands look like this (one for each color), also Reflecting Pool also being in the environment doesn't help. There are also filter lands for all 10 color pairs, and a mix of ally and enemy color Tribal lands. By themselves things would probably be ok, but together they basically mean you can always play the best cards in every color without worrying about it. Actually, they enable a crazy 5 color control deck, and as I said, decks playing fewer colors to sideboard whatever they want because their mana could do it anyway. All the more reason to stick to drafting.
But in a couple months, the best sorts of things available in Standard will become only allied color 2010 duals, Alara Tri-Lands, and one or two bad cards that make any color with a drawback, plus whatever's in the new set, but it sounds from Wizards R&D articles like they're trying hard to move away from the "drop it in, my lands can do that" state of things.

There are call backs to old cards in many sets, but color-shifted cards are most frequent in Planar Chaos
Green Ball Lightning. | Black Wrath of God. | Black Whirling Dervish. | green Concentrate | Red Prodigal Sorcerer. | Red Pestilence. | Blue Serra Angel. That was fun for a while, but things have gone back more or less to colors being defined as themselves again, though a few of the changes in that set became changes for real in what effects belong in each color.

Also, Best Lhurgoyf ever

[Harald B]

Ah, I remember Reflecting Pool and the Mirage-block + Rath-block multicolor decks. I half feel like ranting, but let's not. I'm sure we agree anyway. Maybe I'll give Magic Online another look when the blocks cycle.

[MaxFan]

By the way, the M:tG pro tour is in San Diego this weekend. I'm thinking of going to just check out the hooplah since they're local to me for once.