Any fellow Magic The Gathering players?

[burgingham]

I used to play the game pretty religiously, but it's gotten too expensive any more. Prices don't even drop after cards rotate out of standard now thanks to the modern format. And it didn't help most the people I played with didn't even make their own decks, they just looked up top tier shit and bought it. Every new set they release is more broken than the last and heaven forbid you want some non-basic lands for your deck. Might as well just buy some diamonds.

Most new cards are not modern relevant though really. There are always like one or two in each set. Also most of the old cards especially lands are an actual investment. If you look how prices of dual lands go up and up and up every month... That being said playing eternal formats is ridiculously expensive, yes.

Sets are hardly more broken though. The power balancing is much more complex than that. Noncreature spells cannot compete with the old sets for the life of them, but since those old spells were completely broken anyway that is fine by me. Counterspell, and even more ridiculous stuff like Force, Ancestral etc. So for spells the power level actually went down a lot and has now been at a stable position for some time. If you look at the eternal formats hardly any new noncreature spells are being played there (the design mistake of the new delve draw spells aside...). Same goes for mana acceleration and fixing.

Creature power level however went up, yes. Old creatures were often complete garbage and needed a buff. Even with the current powerlevel they don't manage to have any relevant impact on eternal formats (some notable exceptions are Delver or Tarmogoyf) and even in standard there is usually plenty of competitive control decks left that go with very few or no creatures at all.

The design choice that actually bothers me more is not a rising power level (cause that does not really exist imo), it is more that Wizard wanted to open the game up to a broader player base (which is good) and thus tried to focus everything around simple creature combat (which is bad). Combo decks and attrition based strategies like land destruction or discard for example are completely gone from new formats, as Wizards decided they disturb the flow of an easy game.


I had not played for like 6 years but have picked it up again 2 years ago. Mostly to go to tournaments with friends. Have been playing some regional PTQs and went to some GPs (Brussel, Paris, Utrecht) over the last year. Mostly playing standard and limited formats.

One of the best games ever made. I play and have played it a ton since Revised.

It is probably actually the best game ever made.

[romovs]

Magic The Gathering emmm
Do I understand this right - you buy *physical* playing cards for playing?
That's quite ingenious business wise.

[burgingham]

It is a gold mine, yes :p

They are far behind on the virtual sector though. Their online client is a piece of trash coded by a five year old and it gets worse with every version they release. Hearthstone has taken a lot of online players from them because of that.

[Chebermech]

played some pc versions for a few years and just started playing physical cards on january first, trying to construct a pauper cube, here's some work in progress: http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/newbcube/ trying to make it interesting and newb friendly, not too expensive either, any advice from experienced players is appreciated =).

[jorb]

attrition based strategies like land destruction or discard for example are completely gone from new formats, as Wizards decided they disturb the flow of an easy game.

I kind of agree with that decision, though. Magic is more fun when both sides get to actually play spells. I don't mind a strategy being dominant, but I do hate it when it accomplishes said dominance simply by locking the opponent out of playing the game.

I mean... there are still cards that counter spells, force the opponent to discard, and destroy lands. They just aren't as crazy as they used to be.

[burgingham]

Well yes to a certain degree I understand it too. Being combo'ed out of the game out of nowhere certainly is not fun. But I think the diversity suffered a lot from those policy changes too. It is probably hard to distinguish between good and bad combo strategies though, so this might have been the only solution.

@Cheber: So far you only have added the black portion of the cube it seems? Any particular topics/lore/strategies the cube is supposed to evolve around? Or just good cards for versatile draft straegies? Older cards allowed too (not expensive ones)? I might try and add a pice of the colour pie then when I find some time

[Redlaw]

Stasis decks wear only fun to those that made them. When all you can say is go, for 20 minutes its no fun...

[Chebermech]

So far you only have added the black portion of the cube it seems? Any particular topics/lore/strategies the cube is supposed to evolve around? Or just good cards for versatile draft straegies? Older cards allowed too (not expensive ones)? I might try and add a pice of the colour pie then when I find some time

Yeah i just started a few days ago, going through all the cards which im not familiar with and picking ones that look interesting, started with black and still have ways to go. Trying to pick newer cards that have similar layout design (so not picking the oldschool vintage ones). The idea is to get my friends into the game who at max only played hearthstone or not played any tcgs at all. So as long as it is interesting, inexpensive and balanced, and each card has some interesting perk unlike any other, its all good, no matter the lore, topic or strategy.

edit: oh and im also going for small cube for now (360)

[MagicManICT]

Stasis decks wear only fun to those that made them. When all you can say is go, for 20 minutes its no fun...

Worse yet, the deck is designed to take nearly the entire time of the allotted time in a tournament. Because you can't pre-sideboard, the person with the control deck usually wins the first match or brings it to a draw if they're confident in their sideboard additions vs their opponent. I remember a couple of tourneys I judged at where the stasis and grindstone went well together and there was always a couple people playing it. They had little chance of winning the second game due to sideboards getting swapped in, but the first game took so long that the second game never got finished. I'll note that in my region, these decks never actually made it into the top playoff spots after the Swiss draw format, but then I don't necessarily recall any of their opponents getting a chance to get in, either, and in a few cases, they were people that had a definite chance to win first place.

Overall, I do like the design strategies that Wizards' has implemented over the years as early Magic was a random roll of the dice to see who played first and could pull off the big combo. You either channellballed or you countered channelball, or you got in a counterspell war to get your channelball off. Even when type II was introduced in 1995 (if I recall correctly), it was still pretty brutal, though the game definitely took on more control and conquer aspects rather than spew forth and gamble of Unlimited, Arabian Nights, and Legends.

[Redlaw]

My main deck I play when I can (well when people let me play it), means I smash there face with an angel or dragon on my 2nd-3rd tern and then double it for the kill next turn. But for an Oath of Druids deck mine is slightly different.... and ya ever seen someones face when they have a giant hoard of goblins readi to beat you to the stone age and cant attack? It was funny, staring at 200+ damage and the guy well I am screwed....