posted
Based on the search history, ya'all haven't discussed this back since 2005...
Which is exactly the last time I played. Sadly, my beautiful decks have all disappeared. However, I was recently overcome with a deep lust (the only word to describe the feeling) to play, I bought two fat-packs (8 booster packs) at the local hobby store, and it has been awesome!
Magic cards are so darn expensive! Do you know of a way to get back into the game and build some nice decks? I've seen sales on ebay for 1000 cards, but I know they aren't selling me that many great cards. Should I stick to buying official packs at the store? I don't care about used vs. new. Does anyone know anything about how to get the best value for my money?
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Play in booster draft tournaments. Gradually develop an idea of what sorts of deck you want to make, given the current environment, from those tournaments. Plan out the deck, then, buy exactly the additional cards you need. Rinse, repeat.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Magic the Gathering is actually relative cheap as past times go, I still have my red-black Dragon reanimator deck (because I love dragons) but can't ever to seem to get back in myself, largely because any viable deck strategies for Dragons are expensive and only have like 5 dragon creatures total.
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I have a complete set of Third Edition that used to be worth a fair amount of money. It's probably not worth anything now. I should have sold it when I had the chance.
I stopped playing a long time ago when someone in my family, I won't name names (but he knows who he is!) lost the majority of my cards, except for my Third Edition set. I had nice couple of decks too, but after that was gone, I didn't have the heart to start over again.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Revised edition (third edition) dual lands are still worth a decent amount. Mtg cards haven't ever gone down in value afaik so you're set is worth more now than it was back whenever you last priced it (no guarantees that the price kept up with inflation but I suspect that it did).
Tangent: I'm bothered by a lot of the new things in magic. I don't like the new card designs*, I don't like the new artwork, I don't like artifacts with colored mana costs, and I don't like hybrid mana costs (a multi-colored card should be harder to cast than a single color card, not easier).
* The "new" design has been out for years now but I like the darker colors of the earliest sets much better.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
A friend recently got me and my son into this game for the first time (MTG game out toward the beginning of the 7 years that I was almost completely out of touch with popular and geek culture). We're enjoying it.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I haven't played since middle school (also 2005) when I brrowed a friend's deck. My parents did not understand the concept of non-4 suite card games and never got me any magic cards .
Posts: 399 | Registered: Dec 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Threads: Revised edition (third edition) dual lands are still worth a decent amount. Mtg cards haven't ever gone down in value afaik so you're set is worth more now than it was back whenever you last priced it (no guarantees that the price kept up with inflation but I suspect that it did).
Tangent: I'm bothered by a lot of the new things in magic. I don't like the new card designs*, I don't like the new artwork, I don't like artifacts with colored mana costs, and I don't like hybrid mana costs (a multi-colored card should be harder to cast than a single color card, not easier).
* The "new" design has been out for years now but I like the darker colors of the earliest sets much better.
Awesome, that's good to know. Do they still sell those magazines that list the value of the cards? Or would I just go out to some sort of trading card dealer or somewhere on the web to see what I get offered?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Try to find a well attended hobby shop that hosts tournaments. I recommend the "sealed" and "draft" formats. Both are extremely fun, and neither format permits you to go nuts on buying cards.
I love Magic, but honestly the biggest obstacle is that you want to keep purchasing the new cards that are released frequently, and that gets expensive.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I have no problem with buying past cards - and I doubt I'm going to do tournaments.
I play a very social game - I used to play myself, and with 3 other guys. We all graduated high school, college, and are off in our different graduate programs. We reunited and thougth it would be fun to get back into the game - but I don't see myself connecting with anyone outside our small circle. We use to rotate through about 8 or 9 decks - I'd like to build up a solid collection of 8 or 9 decks and just play with them. Today, after buying two fat packs - we have about 4 decks - 2 of them are pretty solid. I'm just looking for a cheap way to get 8 or 9 good decks.
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I liked Magic back in the day (he said, scratching his grizzled chin.) The friend who introduced me to it was acquainted with Richard Garfield when he was a prof at Whitman.
These days, I feel an aversion to it bordering on nausea. Partly from watching some friends play it so much that it hurt their academics, but partly just the ridiculous arms race it seemed to become. "Competitive" players have to keep up with what amounts to an arms race, and people who play it just for fun, bless 'em, seem to spend half or more of every game squinting and saying, "What is that? What does that do?"
Playing a quick game with someone else's decks can be fun, and some people really get into trying to devise decks that have clever tricks or interesting themes. But as an ongoing habit on which you spend your own money...? Part of me thinks this is akin to someone telling you they plan to start smoking and speculating on what brand would taste best.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
When the Star Wars CCG came out, I sold all my magic cards instantaneously. What a far superior game star wars was. Then they went and destroyed that one too.
I had a similar problem with Magic that Sterling had. It eventually didn't take any skill to make a good deck. All you needed was expensive cards.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I had a similar problem with Magic that Sterling had. It eventually didn't take any skill to make a good deck. All you needed was expensive cards.
For a while I felt bad about playing Magic because of the expense. Then I realized that while I spent about $12 every other week on Magic (one draft), my other friends were spending far more than that on beer, car paraphenelia (sp?) and other assorted things. So yes, it is a game specifically designed to farm people for money, but ultimately what matters is how much you spend on frivolous things period.
I played Magic extensively when doing so was part of the social experience of my friends. Nowadays I don't have any nearby friends who play, so I haven't really played in about a year.
I will say that drafts are definitely the way to go, assuming you have a fun gaming group. $10-$15 for a fun night out isn't too unreasonable, so long as the whole thing is a satisfying social experience. (The card store in my new location is full of mean players who aren't fun at all and try to get the tournament over as fast as possible so they can start another one, so even though it's cheaper (I stopped going).
Drafting eliminates "big expensive cards" as a contributing factor to winning since every game is random. (Most pros consider drafting to be a truer test of skill, since any random 10 year old can be handed an efficient beatdown deck and win). Drafting will also get you all the cards you need to either play casually or even build a competitive deck (and honestly, there are usually a few competitive builds out there that are fairly cheap).
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:For a while I felt bad about playing Magic because of the expense. Then I realized that while I spent about $12 every other week on Magic (one draft), my other friends were spending far more than that on beer, car paraphenelia (sp?) and other assorted things. So yes, it is a game specifically designed to farm people for money, but ultimately what matters is how much you spend on frivolous things period.
it wasn't specifically the expense that bothered me, but that I felt it didn't take any skill to make a good deck anymore with the amount of cards available, particularly the big expensive ones. You address this later in your post though.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Out of curiosity, why did you get rid of your old decks? All of mine are in a box in the basement, should I ever get the craving to play.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Re: only playing socially and not tournaments, booster draft tournaments are social events. Sure, there are the big ones, but more usually it is around a dozen people who know each other at the local game store. They're a great test of deck-building skills, and much cheaper than buying enough cards to put together eight or nine decent decks, even if you go to them every week for months.
If you don't want to get involved in local booster drafts, I'd see if your friends would be interested in running some booster drafts.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
How well timed. This last Sunday I checked out a video game/board game store in Worcester. It had very few dvds/games but held a half a dozen teens playing Magic (and Yu-gi-oh). I watched for a few minutes then headed out. I was amused because they probably thought I was just some woman (late 20s) who had no idea what they were doing.
I played 4th edition back in high school. In college I did the occasional draft game with friends. Our geek dorm (Techhouse) had several boxes of cards donated to us by a member for communal games. That was awesome.
Besides eBay I think most batches of cards are going to be found by chance: like a fellow Hatracker or craigslist or old friend. Try asking on Facebook if any of your old friends want to sell you their cards at a reasonable price. Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
That's a great idea! ::rushes to facebook::
Yea - I'm about to start my first year of Law School - this is really, like I said, a nice way of reconnecting with old friends.
that havingbeen said - you are right, it isn't unreasonable to spent 10-14 dollars on a nice night out. Maybe the collection will accumulate a bit, and when it does, we'll have a few nice decks and stop expanding.
The original decks we played with were all made by my older brother - we played for 4 years and never felt the need to buy cards of our own.
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I used to be ranked in the top 100 in the world by the DCI. Ah memories... I stopped playing about the time of Mirage.
Apparently there's a new core set that wipes the slate clean. All the old cards aren't playable anymore. I don't know what that does to values... I've been meaning to check ebay, but people won't be buying them for tourneys anymore. And I have a trunk full of old cards =(
When I saw the display at the hobby store my hubby dragged me to the other day I was overwhelmed by an urge to play... The clerk said they have frequent sealed deck tourneys... but I know it's a bad idea...
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Remember that card that told you to tear it up, throw the pieces in the air, and destroy any card it touches?
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Chaos Orb didn't say that.. but someone did it at a tourney once and sprinkled it on the other guys cards. The judge ruled he won. It was later errataed to say you can't do that anymore.
Then there was the novelty 8.5x11 chaos orb.. but it wasn't tourney legal.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:When the Star Wars CCG came out, I sold all my magic cards instantaneously. What a far superior game star wars was. Then they went and destroyed that one too.
I had a similar problem with Magic that Sterling had. It eventually didn't take any skill to make a good deck. All you needed was expensive cards.
I still have all my old Star Wars TCG cards somewhere. Assuming my dad hasn't thrown them all out. *reminds self to do an attic raid next time I'm home*
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Armoth, it depends on what format you want to play. The Limited formats like sealed deck and booster draft are best if you just want to play a few games every once in a while with new cards each time -- you just go, buy a few packs or tournament pack, build your deck, and play.
If you don't want to play Limited or casual and actually want to play a tournament-legal deck, there are quite a few formats to choose from:
Standard allows roughly the last two years' worth of cards, so sets are rotating out and rotating in all the time. If you're starting from a clean slate, wait until Lorwyn rotates out (which is shortly, I think) and then you'll be on pretty equal footing with everyone else. Standard is easy to get into, but it's expensive to maintain since cards are rotating out all the time.
Extended allows roughly the last seven years' worth of cards. If you want to explore sets that you've missed, this is a good format to choose. Modest cost of entry and modest maintenance cost.
Legacy allows cards from every set, but most of the seriously overpowered stuff like Black Lotus is banned. Somewhat higher cost of entry, but low maintenance cost since only a couple of dozen new cards each year significantly affect Legacy -- if that many.
Vintage allows everything except for ante cards, but a lot of cards that are banned in Legacy are restricted to one per deck in Vintage. I actually find this the most interesting format to read about, because at the top level the workings of the decks are extremely intricate and a lot can happen within a single phase of a single turn. It's the most expensive format to get into, by far, but once you have the cards, you only need to grab one or two new cards in a given year to adjust your decks.
Pix, there was a big rules cleanup with 6th Edition that did away with interrupts and replaced them with the concept of the stack -- a last-in, first-out stack that pretty much every effect goes onto when played. The new edition, Magic 2010 or M10, makes some significant alterations to this but it isn't the kind of foundational cleanup that 6E was.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:When the Star Wars CCG came out, I sold all my magic cards instantaneously. What a far superior game star wars was. Then they went and destroyed that one too.
I had a similar problem with Magic that Sterling had. It eventually didn't take any skill to make a good deck. All you needed was expensive cards.
I still have all my old Star Wars TCG cards somewhere. Assuming my dad hasn't thrown them all out. *reminds self to do an attic raid next time I'm home*
I have all of mine as well. with some of my favorite decks still put together. I started getting out some time after Objective cards were added, around the time the prequel sets were coming out. I really loved that game, had a pretty high player rating for a while. I wish I had some geeks around me to play with.
When did they start calling it a TCG?
edit - I see, that's when WotC took over. I've never even seen those cards.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I suppose I'd play a legacy format - I just bought an Eventide and Conflux fat pack - dunno what that means exactly.
Like I said, I just want to build a couple of nice decks and play them with my friends every once in a while. I'm not interested in meeting new decks, just balancing these 8 or 9 against one another.
As for the rules? I remember the rules from years ago - I'm learning new things in the new packs - there are things like Defenders, Domain, Equip, and some other stuff - but they explain themselves on the card. Is there a new set of rules i should be reading?
basically - from all of your advice, I've picked up that I should buy tourney packs. I'm just trying to accumulate enough cards to build a few solid decks. If that's the best way, then great.
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Twink: that's really sad... the intricacies of Timing is what made for good play. Waiting for the last second to make your move and unhinge all of your opponents best laid plans was a huge part of the strategy.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Pixiest: most of the interrupt cleanup kept things equivalent, it just unified the instant and interrupt timing so you didn't have to deal with two separate sets of executing things.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I haven't played MTG in years, but I picked up a few free starters at a game event and looked through them. More than half the monsters were flying. It seems like a lot has changed since I played in HS, and fliers were rare and valuable.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Twink: that's really sad... the intricacies of Timing is what made for good play. Waiting for the last second to make your move and unhinge all of your opponents best laid plans was a huge part of the strategy.
I don't think the concept of the "stack" totally obliterates that concept. It just made it more simple and elegant. Previously you had instants, interrupts, fast effects, etc and it was really confusing how they all played out against each other.
Legend of the 5 rings works alittle bit in the direction you seem to prefer where there are very few cards that stop an action from taking place. So when you say you are doing something, it's much more likely to happen than not. Your opponent instead has to do something that makes your move not so devastating rather than simply placing a card that says, "Whatever your opponent wants to do doesn't happen."
The WOW card game is even more interesting in that you have instants and interrupts again, but you also attack specific units rather than saying you're attacking and the defender then decides who is blocking who.
Currently I'm on a D&D phase, and I love the fact that it just does not cost me that much money, and I still have alot of fun.
Also, I'm terrified of what this game is going to do with my spare time.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Alcon, did you play both iterations of the star wars game? If so how was the new one in comparison to the original?
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: I haven't played MTG in years, but I picked up a few free starters at a game event and looked through them. More than half the monsters were flying. It seems like a lot has changed since I played in HS, and fliers were rare and valuable.
Fliers? Ha! Now it's flying-burrowing-flashing-shadowing-soulshifting with shoulder-mounted rockets, laser eyeballs, and rabies!
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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