tragic : the gathering

[filingo]

WAT

MTG is a trading card gaem which uses a series of cards to beat your opponents series of cards. its kind of fun. there are a lot of cards

FORMATS

Magic is usually played with a deck of 60 cards, with up to 4 copies of each card apart from basic lands. there are several formats you can play

casual - anything goes meight
standard - a rotating format of the current 2/3 blocks - pretty expensive
modern - non rotating made up of blocks from mirrordin onwards - an attempt to make a cheaper format to get into
legacy - non rotating format with a ban-list to take out some of the really broken stuff. very expensive
vintage - non rotating format played with cards made from solid gold

there are other formats but one of note is commander/edh (my favourite)

100 card singleton deck (no duplicates apart from basic land) with one legendary creature chosen as the commander. the cards in the deck must be of the colours of your commander.

there are also limited formats where you all draw your cards from boosters rather than constructing them at home - often a good way to play so you dont get stomped by money (but then you have to make a deck from what you get). oh yeah, and try to go for sealed - that way you just get a bunch of boosters and open them. draft involves opening a pack, picking a card and passing it around. that sounds confusing to me

sites :

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/default.aspx<-- wizards columns
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/ <--- biggest mtg forums, full of babbies but worth picking bits from
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/ <-- daily articales that are usually ok
http://ertaislament.com/ <-- blog of all the premade decks you can buy
www.deckbox.org <-- deckbuilder site that i like to use
http://magiccards.info/ <-- card search website, i find it easier to use than the offical one

programms:

http://cockatrice.de/ <-- online client, barebones and requires knowledge of game but free, complete and functional

Recent sets

Innistrad/Dark Ascension/Avacyn Restored - Gothic Horror theme, graveyard matters (flashback), slightly depowered, pretty cool block, Dark Ascension has undying which brings creatures back to the field with a +1/+1 token when they die as long as they dont have a token on them already, Avacyn restored has lots of big angels and demons etc.

Scars Of Mirrodin/Mirrodin Besieged/New Phyrexia - Return to mirrodin artifact block, lots of stronk cards, awesome set imo

Zendikar/Worldwake/Rise of the Eldrazi - really cool block, has landfall/level up and kicker abilities. rise contains huuuuuge creatures which are just ridiculous. Worldwake is so so but rise and zendikar are awesome.

Core sets

m13 : bit of a mixed bag with some interesting things in it, exhalted is the returning mechanic, no titans, lots of good commander cards/reprints

m12 : last set with titans, some very good cards, some very mediocre cards

[Kilabi]

Proper way to play this online would be nice. With editing decks and everything.

[Al Simmons]

Yugioh is better

[Grarr Dexx]

Proper way to play this online would be nice. With editing decks and everything.

There were a couple of clients back in the day (Apprentice was the biggest one) where you could basically put together a deck of any cards (of course in the correct format) and go online and search other people wanting to fight you in that format.

It was very rudimentary and basic, but it did the job, followed card rules and it was amazing to play. Back during the early Mirrodin block days I used to do a lot of T1.5 games with a hilarious Sneak Attack deck which rammed Trampling dragons down the opponent's throat.

[Sofia Roseburn]

Yugioh is better

I actually agree.

[Amantus]

ok

so im sad

but

i liek this muchness

[filingo]

really?

the current sets out are fucking awesome.

zendikar/rise of the eldrazi have some really cool mechanics and the current scars of mirrodin has cool artifacts and poison mechanic in it

(infect is -1/-1 in creature damage, if a player gets 10 infect counters they loose)
(metalcraft abilities trigger with 3 or more artifacts in play)

[Al Simmons]

[quote=Sofia Roseburn]

Yugioh is better

I actually agree.[/quote:1zqm3pbu]

Hah, really? But yeah, I think it is, though I haven't played seriously for like a year. I keep meaning to get back into it, it's just money/effort buying new cards and shit to catch up

[filingo]

dont troll my thread plz

[Al Simmons]

dont troll my thread plz

Log in to Eve plz.

no

[Lorkin Desal]

The infect mechanic sucks balls and really pisses me off. (Mainly becaus I cant beat my friends infect deck)

Eldrazzi are cool.

The game you can get for steam is pretty cool and although the deck customization is limited, the decks they have made work well. We need to set up a FHC laddder or somthing for that...

[Kilabi]

Actually Yugioh is really good.

Hope they bring a proper client for this soonish. Played the demo the actual but it looks like you can only use their decks and add some locked cards to it after a while. But no fullscale customization. And that would be what i am looking for.

[donjehova]

There was an maybe still is an online version of mtg, which i remember i played a few years back. Client was trashy as hell, but worked with a bit of good will and patience. There where fairly many players on too

[pratell]

aside from the wotc online version which is pretty fun and full of cashtraps, i used to play on a client with all the cards in a big database that was updated regularly, or you could make your own. i will see if i can't find it.

[Lorkin Desal]

Yeah the DLC for the steam one is pretty tiresome, however I like it that they are pushing out semi regular updates. The challenges are pretty cool as well.

[Grarr Dexx]

http://www.magicworkstation.com/

Enjoy.

[filingo]

hm

interesting

also : i am terrible at making decks and it makes my brain hurt

[pratell]

http://www.magicworkstation.com/

Enjoy.

that's the one. great piece of software.

[filingo]

needs moar mirrodin beseiged but we should give it a go

[Redclaws]

It's be great if they had a fully customizable game where you have to play games to get cash to buy more cards.
(And XP/levels to keep it fair)
But of course that would eat severely into their profits.

I just don't want to spend stupid amounts of money to remain competitive. And Magic without a money limit is just stupid because everybody would build decks that win in the first turn.