Magic: The Gathering (TCG) Catch-all

Oh, and can anyone recommend any good podcasts? I found the Nerdivores podcast this weekend, and I really like it, but I'm open to trying more.

I got green and black starter decks at PAX last weekend. My 10 year old found them and wanted to play, so I taught him the game. Last night, he was looking though the black deck and said "Are there any other decks?"

Uh oh.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Oh, and can anyone recommend any good podcasts?

If you're interested in limited formats, I highly recommend Limited Resources. Smart guys. Lots of detail. Comprehensive reviews of new sets as they come out. Lively enough to keep things interesting.

Aristophan wrote:

I got green and black starter decks at PAX last weekend. My 10 year old found them and wanted to play, so I taught him the game. Last night, he was looking though the black deck and said "Are there any other decks?"

Uh oh.

That's hilarious.

4dSwissCheese wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Oh, and can anyone recommend any good podcasts?

If you're interested in limited formats, I highly recommend Limited Resources. Smart guys. Lots of detail. Comprehensive reviews of new sets as they come out. Lively enough to keep things interesting.

Downloading the most recent episode now, thanks! Man, the show notes say that they'll be discussing maximizing EV on MTGO. That's pretty hardcore, although something that I've thought about a little in the past.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

I skipped Scars of Mirrodin because I didn't like original Mirrodin.

I would give Scars another look, it was a really potent set. Not imbalanced the way Mirrodin was. I didn't draft it though, so I don't know how well it does in that format.

Well, maybe I will. I think that the Ravnica drafts are either over or over tomorrow. But I'll probably focus on trying INN/DA, M13, and more AVC. In the event that I decide to dip into Constructed (not my forte), those cards will be around Standard another year.

I understand that Magic Online has occasionally offered Cube Drafting, but not regularly. Man, they just can't figure out a way to serve their customers well. At least Swiss and 4-pack sealed are steps in the right direction. If only I were in charge of Magic Online. :)

As someone who drafts every week, I'll just throw in the general feelings of my local club:

Scars of Mirrodin - a good set, especially for constructed. Limited was pretty divisive as you either competed for poison (G/B), or drafted some combination of the other 3 colours. Good for a few drafts, but eventually not that great
Innistrad - probably the best limited set ever, certainly since the last Ravnica. Lots of interesting archetypes and card synergies and pretty much any colour combination has an interesting deck you can draft.
Avacyn Restored - One of the least liked limited sets I can remember. The paucity of instant speed effects, soulbond, and high top end leads to a very haymaker style of play. In my turn I play a big effect, you either have to top it or deal with or on your turn. Games can be very one sided, and there are not many effects that allow you to get back in a game
M13 - The core sets keep getting better, and this one drafts well, people certainly prefer it to Avacyn. I personally don't have much experience with it.

I agree with Torq's assessment of the levels of fun for each set in limited. Personally, I play limited and EDH only. DraftMagic.com is a decent site to go watch videos of people drafting with commentary. Watch a few rounds of people picking cards and eventually you'll be quite familiar with the set, and with which cards are actually good. They don't explain a lot of the basics though, so it helps to have a good base of knowledge about the game in general.

Next question!

Where do y'all like to read Magic articles? I'm particularly interested in limited strategy, but not exclusively. Back in the day I subscribed to the premium articles at StarCityGames, but these days it seems like there are a lot more good writers out there, and a lot of sites are giving quality articles away just for pageviews/hope that you'll buy cards from them.

Sites I know about:

StarCityGames: Used to have the best premium articles, the free articles always seemed much more casual.

Wizards.com: Almost completely useless, but sometimes fascinating, especially Rosewater.

ChannelFireball: I've just started looking here. It kind of appears that they are giving high quality content away for free, which I obviously like.

Thoughts? Corrections? More sites?

Thanks for recommending the Limited Resources podcast - I haven't finished it yet, but the episode about EV on MTGO has been absolutely fascinating. Their friend apparently has graphed out (and placed online) the EV of each of the 3 types of draft queues depending on your win percentage.

Apparently, the bottom line is that if win over 50% of your matches, 8-4 gives the best EV. If you win under (and I realize this leaves out winning exactly half - I'm going off what they said) 50%, the Swiss drafts are best. 4322 never offers the best EV.

The one thing they didn't address is the theoretical difference in skill one expects to face in the different queues, as I think most people expect the 8-4 queue to be only the better drafters.

Anyway, I decided to try M13 draft tonight. I traded my 3 AVR packs that I won in the 4 pack Swiss sealed I played last weekend to a bot for 3.99 each; existing credit got me to 12 tickets. Then I offered a human in Classifieds 14 tix for 4x M13, which he accepted. It never hurts to ask, eh? That price was inside the spread of bot prices, so fair for both - and conveniently not a fractional number.

I entered a Swiss queue since I don't know the format at all and wanted to play all three matches and learn it, regardless of success. Long story short, I was passed a ton of white and ended up W/g with the equipment that grants flying. I won the whole thing, although I made some stupid errors along the way. I had some seriously close games, including one where I had my opponent on 2 life and I was 18. He triple +4/+4'ed one of his attackers and did 19 in one attack to steal the game!

I don't remember there being so much terminology in Magic "back in the day". Just goes to show how much the game has blown out in the last decade or so. I tried listening to the Limited Resources podcast this morning and was pretty much left in the dark, haha.

I have to say, as I'm getting more and more back into the Magic world, I'm starting to become encouraged about some things Wizards has been doing.

Previously, I was discouraged by the player-unfriendly (imho) decisions of making the "normal" (at the time) Online draft queue pay out one pack less (which is still BS and still needs to change), the discontinuation of Online league play (alleged to be returning, but that's been a loooooong time now), and the introduction of Mythic rares, which in my opinion just make constructed even more ridiculously expensive.

Now, I still have all of those complaints, but I am very pleased with things like:

• the support of new, more casual formats Online, like Commander

• new, player-friendly Swiss formats Online, including four-pack sealed

• testing for allowing Cube draft online, which absolutely blows my mind, although we'll see what the cost and prize support will be

• continuous attempts to introduce new products that will help get folks playing quickly, like Duel Decks and the new Booster Battle packs. Booster Battle Packs in particular sound like the perfect way to spend very little money and introduce new players to the concept of evaluating cards to include in one's deck.

Now, none of my older complaints have really gone away, but I see a lot of good things being done for the hobby, and I really like the introduction of new ways to play Online. Right now, I feel like there's no good way for me to play online unless I have three hours to devote to a draft/four-pack sealed. I *think* they have constructed queues that let you play just one match for minimal prizes, and I'd love to see them introduce Pack Wars/Mini-Master. Even if there was no prize support, it would have me cracking at least a pack most nights of the week.

I had written a program to take my exported collection and to randomly make me decks. I had given it to others in the clan and we would play the randomly created decks blind ( i.e. not look at them and just play ). I had lots of deck building rules incorporated within the program, so the decks weren't too bad ( though not as good as creating your own ).

I had even written a program that created fake sealed decks out of your collection. We would then make the best decks from those cards and play.

Added a nice cheap way to play with cards we owned...and blind was fun because you would end up using cards that you may never have added to a deck, heck, some great combos were found out that way.

Of course this was all very casual and would never hold up against tourney strength decks.

Sounds fun to me! I'm primarily a limited tourney guy, but Magic is just fun, period. And I like the idea of playing crazy brews casually.

I haven't played in probably 15 years or so, but for some reason, I'm itching to get back in. I'll probably pick up Duels 2013 to get started. What's a good resource for learning all the new features/abilities?

Duels will teach you as you go.

This is a good time to get back in. I'd say play Duels, then try out some M13 (the current core set), then move up to Return to Ravnica, the new expansion coming out at the end of this month. Ravnica was an awesome block, so this one is expected to be really excellent.

Any other questions we can answer?

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Sounds fun to me! I'm primarily a limited tourney guy, but Magic is just fun, period. And I like the idea of playing crazy brews casually.

I'll have to reinstall MTGO, maybe I can even find the source code for my application. Oh, and a while back I created a clan for us, but then things just died down. I believe I called it Magic the Goodjers or something really close to that - I'll get back to you on that

We've had a clan for a loooooong time, but I don't know who's the leader these days. I don't see any of the others online. I'm guessing we have two now, both almost entirely inactive.

Last time I logged in over a year ago I think badferret was still the clan leader.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Last time I logged in over a year ago I think badferret was still the clan leader.

That's who I remembered as well.

It's possible we just don't have enough interest to maintain a clan. If anyone is playing, though, friend me up!

I got my Izzet vs Golgari duel decks in the mail today. Hoping to get together with TheWalt this weekend to give them a whirl.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

This is a good time to get back in. I'd say play Duels, then try out some M13 (the current core set), then move up to Return to Ravnica, the new expansion coming out at the end of this month. Ravnica was an awesome block, so this one is expected to be really excellent.

Any other questions we can answer?

Thanks for the input! Looking at the MTGO, it seems like it's supposed to be a digital copy of the game - you buy packs and build decks, etc. that sounds pretty good from an organizational standpoint, if it tracks everything and eases setup/cleanup. How does it compare to the physical version for gameplay? How do the prices compare?

It's super convenient, but some folks don't like paying for digital cards. Packs cost the same as in real life, but cannot be bought at bulk discount like they can in real life. Singles from dealers tend to be cheaper than in real life.

I use it almost exclusively for playing draft. A couple years ago, I actually built a competitive block deck and it was pretty good for that, too. In general, even though I have a family and don't get to play physical Magic that much, I still see online as a supplement to the real deal, and not as something where I particularly want to build a collection. But that's me, and given my greater opportunities to play online than in real life, it doesn't necessarily make sense.

For all who want to see some spoilers on Return to Ravnica this is a good place to check regularly: http://www.magicspoiler.com/return-t...

If someone wants to start something on MTGO I'm in! Sadly MTGO turned out to be the only real way for me to play Magic since its very hard to make it to a store in time for FNM with my working hours (they usually start at 4pm).

For online, I have come up with a Black/Red Zombie Deck for Standard and play 1on1s and as soon as I have 3 boosters ready I jump into a draft. I didn't really keep count on what I spent so far and it took me quite some while to find out that this deck is what suits me best but all in all it seems a rather cost efficient way to keep playing and earning new cards.

So I would recommend getting a deck for online and using it to earn the draft boosters that you can't get out of your previous draft.

I found that a good way to practice sealed is to save the deck from the event and then just use that for free for all and play around with different builds. If you ask around in the chat others usually also have their decks saved from recent events. Works better if you have friends who also play sealed online of course. If other people here play sealed online and want some practice rounds with their previous pools let me know.

I bought singles for the same deck in paper for the local FNM btw but it didn't work out that great. The meta at the local FNM is very different and after playing so much online all the shuffling kind of annoyed me, lol. Most of the time playing with real cards I just get flooded or mana screwed. Really appreciate the digital shuffler now

Also, while playing online will definitely help build your understanding of the game (e.g. how the stack works) coming back to playing paper after a while of playing online is challenging because you have to start tracking things like triggers and effects yourself again.

Meater - send me a friend request on MTGO sometime. We can play some old draft decks against each other - the client automatically saves them.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Meater - send me a friend request on MTGO sometime. We can play some old draft decks against each other - the client automatically saves them.

I sent an invite to Fedaykin98 hope that's what you called your MTGO account, too.

Since I'm from Germany I guess we'll have to figure out when your game time overlaps with mine but in the next two weeks I'm fairly flexible.

That's me.

Man, been super busy, sick, etc. lately, and haven't played in about two weeks. Tonight I tried an M13 8-4, and sadly lost 2-0 in the first round. I *think* I drafted really well, and just got unlucky. I drafted W/b Exalted and had stuff like triple Aven Squire, double Ajani lifelink 2/2, triple Pacifism, dude whose p/t = # of creatures, and Serra Angel.

My opponent was R/w aggression with 3/3 goblin who needs a friend, 3/1 haste must attack, some other guys, and a Serra Angel. The first game he nearly blew me out, taking me down to 2 before I recovered, and I was coming back and had him at 6 when he dropped 3/2 intimidate guy and I had one draw to find an answer.

Second round I mulliganed to 5 looking for a hand with more than one land. Found it, and made a decent go at it with just two land for several turns. I took the lead and got him to 13, but ultimately got blown out.

Again, I really think I had a good deck, although I haven't done Exalted before in any format, but that's how the ball bounces with the shuffler and with single-elimination formats.

B/W exalted is the strongest deck you can draft in M13, and it sounds like you had a few of the great cards for it. Unfortunately, single elimination can be a punk if you get a bad draw and/or your opponent gets a great one.

Squee9 wrote:

Unfortunately, single elimination can be a punk if you get a bad draw and/or your opponent gets a great one.

I cant count the times i've lost due to bad draws... It's scary.

It happens, no doubt, and it certainly happens some times to your opponent as well.

Tonight I went to my LGS because some folks were going to be Cube drafting. I really just wanted to see the whole thing in action. I didn't go until after my kids were in bed, so I missed the normal FNM draft, and they had already done the Cube draft as well. Someone from the Cube group wanted to take a break for a round to get some dinner, so I got to play a match with his deck - a pretty sick U/W/G (Bant? I wasn't playing then.) control deck. I won both games pretty handily.

The Cube was a common/uncommon only build. Cards I had included Skullclamp (!), Mother of Runes, Armadillo Cloak, flying shroud wall, Rewind, some bounce, and a snake that gets a +1/+1 counter everytime you draw a card.

If anyone found the Limited Resources podcast off-putting when I recommended it up-thread because the topic of the most recent episode at the time had to do with metagaming MTGO rather than playing magic itself, give it a go now they've been more directly game-focused recently. The two latest episodes are a M13 postmortem and a Return to Ravnica rules preview where they have a magic judge guest on to talk about new and notable card-interactions. And the next two shows will be the gigantic set-preview shows where they evaluate every card from the new set. And equivalent show for M13 very helpful when I did the pre-release.