Magic: The Gathering (TCG) Catch-all

My fiancé and I took second place in our local 2-headed giant prerelease. I ran solidly Rakdos while she went Azorius with a few blue Izzet cards. I had hoped to include some Golgari stuff in my deck but the cards just weren't there. We did pull the regular version of the Selesnya promo land (and got its 8/8 token in the same pack) but other than that the best Green in our pool was Giant Growth.

Unleash is crazy good, especially with bounce, Detain, and counters clearing the way. My MVP was the black/red Guildmage. When you swing with him, a couple other 2-power dudes, and 6 open mana there isn't a whole lot your opponents can do. You're going to use his first ability to blow them out in combat if they block. If they don't then you can make them lose even more life, assuming you don't just use the mana to Unleash something else...

Supreme Verdict was a huge help for us as well. Half of our victories came on the back of that card. The fact that it can't be countered saved us once too. I did feel kind of bad in that last game when I followed it up with Rakdos's Return… that black/red burn/discard X spell is just mean.

All in all RtR looks like a really fun set, and I'm really looking forward to playing more.

I've already said that I don't like the guild pre-selection thing for a tournament...however, I ended up really enjoying it. Those guild packs were so sexy, the letter, the die...I cannot WAIT to do it again with Gatecrash, and after those two, "Sinker" may be a real letdown unless there's a gimmick there. They can't possibly have you choose one guild for that event.

I'll post later about what I actually played. Time for lunch!

I'm looking forward to trying out a Rakdos deck in the MTGO pre-release events, which start October 13th :). Release events start Oct. 15th.

Got my box and fat pack for RtR today! And we're planning on having a home draft at my house, a dream I've had for almost ten years!

I will be playing BG Zombies at my next FNM. Lotleth Troll is so fun. Anyone else playing standard? Want to test decks? PM me to hook up.

General question for Magic players:

Once or twice a year, I get together with my cousin, and we play NES games and play quite a few hands of Magic, in between homemade tacos, watching old Dungeons & Dragons cartoons, and drinking way too much. Usually, at each of these get to-gethers, I spend about $30 on a random 1000+ block of cards on eBay (neither of us has played even remotely "seriously" since the mid 90's). We split the cards face down, then go from there. The past couple of years I've been disappointed by a large number of duplicate cards in the lump cards - we're talking 50+ duplicates of certain commons. Not fun.

Disillusioned with eBay I tried a bulk lot from Troll & Toad - same thing - tons of duplicates.

Any good sites to recommend for a good, really random-grab-brag? Or, if you are a big fancy Magic player and have a few thousand cards to unload with minimal duplication for $30 or so (common cards, no problem - I just don't want a ton of the same card), let me know!

I do most of my online business with Star Ctiy Games because they're close enough that I can use the "I'll swing by the store and pick it up" shipping option. They sell "starter boxes" of a thousand cards or so that are supposed to have good variety, but I don't see them listed on the web site. They might be an in-store thing only.

Fun 'N Games, the game store a few blocks from me, has a similar product. They don't have any kind of online sales though.

I'd suggest finding your local store and asking what they have. Even if they don't have something already packaged up they might cut you a deal on buying commons in bulk. And if you're there in the store you can probably just pick them out yourself and avoid excessive duplicates.

Last night, I realized a dream that I've had for almost ten years: I hosted a private draft in my own home! TheWalt and I, along with two other fellas, drafted RtR and played round-robin. Afterwards, we did a rare redraft of the cards from the pool. It was kind of cool in the sense that RtR is deep enough that I think everyone got something pretty decent. I was part of a three-way tie at 2-1, and the roll-off put me in 2nd pick position. The first player took a Temple Garden. I got a Lotleth Troll. Later, I got a Desecration Demon and a foil Hypersonic Dragon.

I'm really, really enjoying RtR. Can't wait to do this again.

Speaking of which, RtR hits MTGO TONIGHT at midnight! I think they've basically got the release of new sets perfect now, in the the prerelease happens, then a week later the set releases in paper, and then a week later it hits MTGO. The previous MTGO lag time was god awful. Now, wouldn't say no to a simultaneous paper and digital release, but I can't blame them for giving paper its exclusive time in the sun.

It turns out I have Timetwister and looking to build a deck around it. I don't have access to alot of the cards I've seen for a conventional Timetwister deck so I'm looking for something newer and a little different, anyone have suggestions? I don't care what type of deck it is, just looking to build one to mess with people. Thanks.

Grand Prix Houston (June 2013) just changed from Standard to Sealed!!!! Huzzah!!!!!

Disregard my [previous post, I have decided to sell it.

Anyone else playing online at all? I drafted RtR 8-4 last night, and ended up with a great Azorius deck. Probably just the second or third time I've played them, and the first time it's worked.

I came in second, winning 4 packs, and sold a rare I drafted for 3 tix as well. Second profitable draft in a row! Really enjoying RtR.

I double-post for good drafts.

Was thinking of finally trying out Magic. My eldest is 10, and I think he'd like playing. Found this over at Amazon. Core Set Toolkit.

Is this something good to start with?
And since we have nothing at all, should I get 2 of them?

That's a pretty good starting place. I don't think you'll need more than 1 of them, 285 cards, plus boosters and 100 lands, is more than enough to make 2-4 decks.

Another good option is the Duel Decks such as Venser vs Koth, Izzet vs. Golgari, and any others (just search Amazon for "mtg duel deck"). Those are balanced 1v1 deck pairs, so if you want to not be overwhelmed by deck building they are all set to go.

Puce Moose wrote:

General question for Magic players:

Once or twice a year, I get together with my cousin, and we play NES games and play quite a few hands of Magic, in between homemade tacos, watching old Dungeons & Dragons cartoons, and drinking way too much. Usually, at each of these get to-gethers, I spend about $30 on a random 1000+ block of cards on eBay (neither of us has played even remotely "seriously" since the mid 90's). We split the cards face down, then go from there. The past couple of years I've been disappointed by a large number of duplicate cards in the lump cards - we're talking 50+ duplicates of certain commons. Not fun.

Disillusioned with eBay I tried a bulk lot from Troll & Toad - same thing - tons of duplicates.

Any good sites to recommend for a good, really random-grab-brag? Or, if you are a big fancy Magic player and have a few thousand cards to unload with minimal duplication for $30 or so (common cards, no problem - I just don't want a ton of the same card), let me know!

Somehow I missed this question months back. I think you should consider buying a 'set' of commons and uncommons from one of the recent blocks. Innistrad would be great since it was one of the best limited environments. You will only get 4 copies of each card and I'm pretty sure common/uncommon sets go for around $30-40. http://www.ccghouse.com/catalog/bulk...

You can most likely find a better deal on ebay.

ahrezmendi wrote:

That's a pretty good starting place. I don't think you'll need more than 1 of them, 285 cards, plus boosters and 100 lands, is more than enough to make 2-4 decks.

Another good option is the Duel Decks such as Venser vs Koth, Izzet vs. Golgari, and any others (just search Amazon for "mtg duel deck"). Those are balanced 1v1 deck pairs, so if you want to not be overwhelmed by deck building they are all set to go.

I think Duel Decks or two different Theme Decks are a good way to go. The other option requires you to build decks before you can play them, and I think that's backwards. Learn to play, and you'll quickly get some ideas about how to build.

The Izzet vs Golgari Duel Deck set is $25 for all you need. The one caveat is that the cards in them are complicated.

Wait a second - For a super cheap option, just get one Booster Battle pack for around $7. Get one from a "Core Set" like Magic 2013. They come with two small decks plus two boosters. The decks will be using somewhat less complex cards, and then you open the boosters and add some of those cards to your deck. It's kind of the best of both worlds in that the decks are pre-built and ready to go, but then you immediately add some cards from a booster and get the fun of opening random packs and selecting cards for your deck.

Again, that option is SUPER cheap and shouldn't use a ton of confusing cards, unlike Izzet vs Golgari, etc. Yeah, I think 2013 Booster Battle Pack all the way.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Yeah, I think 2013 Booster Battle Pack all the way.

Those things are neat, but they don't tend to have much replay value. With only 30 cards in the deck things get a little repetitive after a while. One would be a good way to kill a lunch hour. You could probably get a whole evening out of two of them; play through each on its own and then see what you can do by combining them. I think I'll try that with my fiancé sometime.

Usually when she and I want to play we'll do a Winston Draft. Most of the time we use my cube, but we'll use new boosters on occasion as well.

For reference:

Aaron Forsyth on dailymtg.com wrote:

“Winston Draft,” as it is called, was created by Richard Garfield. Richard was, like I was, looking for a one-on-one format with a little more luck in it. Here are the rules he set forth:

Each player supplies 45 cards worth of sealed product (either three booster packs or a tournament pack minus the lands).
Shuffle all 90 cards together in one big deck without looking at them.
Choose someone to draft first, then put the top three cards from the deck face down next to it as three new small piles of one card each.
The first player looks at the first small pile. He may choose to draft that pile or not.
If he drafts it, he replaces that pile with a new face-down card from the deck.
If he doesn't draft it, he puts it back, adds a new card from the deck face down, and moves on to the next pile.
He looks at that pile and decides to draft it or not, replacing it with a new card if he drafts it, adding a new card to it and moving on if he doesn't.
If he doesn't want to draft the third pile, he adds a card to it, then drafts a random card from the top of the deck. Note: we've found it works better to take the top 2 cards in this instance.
Continue until all 90 cards have been drafted. Construct 40-card decks and play.

Well, you can get what, 4 Booster Battle packs for the price of one Duel Deck set? We're talking about first-time players. I don't think they'll like the complexity of Izzet vs Golgari, and with due respect, they can't possibly Winston Draft.

I didn't mean to imply that the Booster Battle Pack was a bad idea. I did recommend buying two of them.

As for the rest, I was just making general MtG conversation and providing context in case somebody didn't know what a Winston Draft was. I thought that's what a "catch-all" thread was for.

For the record, my fiancé was drafting with me within a day or two of learning how to play the game. Now I'll be the first to admit that she's an exceptional person. It also helped that she's an experienced gamer and was already familiar with drafting games like 7 Wonders. Still, it's not as difficult a thing to learn as you might think. She certainly found drafting a deck a lot easier than working out precisely how Instants work with the Combat phase. It's not something that a first-timer would want to do, but if you know the basics and are looking for something fun to do with a limited random stack of cards, a two-person draft isn't a bad next step.

It's cool. I want to try Winston some time. Love Booster draft, but you kind of want four people for it.

My team at the office is slowly turning into a little Magic-playing cadre. I've so far enjoyed picking up the occasional Intro deck and doing what I can with the included booster pack or buying a couple booster packs every few weeks. I'll play the vanilla deck a few times to get a feel for it, then start tuning them up with booster cards. It's pretty fun this way as I get to keep it casual (both with the spending and the time commitment) and I have a few lunch time matches to look forward to each week. I'm also usually getting a deck that has a solid thematic touch but it isn't elite, so there's room for me to grow it into something more competitive.

Finally got around to grabbing an Intro deck (Azorius Advance) and was impressed by the value-add of 2 booster packs instead of the usual single pack. For the life of me I still cannot fathom why the deck packaging for modern Magic is so unusable. Give me a regular deck box, please.

Was eyeing one of the Ravnica Event Decks but balked at the higher price tag. Are these worth getting even if I never attend one of those Friday Night Magic events? Do they actually come in a plain, usuable card box? (this could be the clincher actually).

I think these days "event decks" are Standard-legal store-bought decks. No idea on packaging.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

That's a pretty good starting place. I don't think you'll need more than 1 of them, 285 cards, plus boosters and 100 lands, is more than enough to make 2-4 decks.

Another good option is the Duel Decks such as Venser vs Koth, Izzet vs. Golgari, and any others (just search Amazon for "mtg duel deck"). Those are balanced 1v1 deck pairs, so if you want to not be overwhelmed by deck building they are all set to go.

I think Duel Decks or two different Theme Decks are a good way to go. The other option requires you to build decks before you can play them, and I think that's backwards. Learn to play, and you'll quickly get some ideas about how to build.

The Izzet vs Golgari Duel Deck set is $25 for all you need. The one caveat is that the cards in them are complicated.

Wait a second - For a super cheap option, just get one Booster Battle pack for around $7. Get one from a "Core Set" like Magic 2013. They come with two small decks plus two boosters. The decks will be using somewhat less complex cards, and then you open the boosters and add some of those cards to your deck. It's kind of the best of both worlds in that the decks are pre-built and ready to go, but then you immediately add some cards from a booster and get the fun of opening random packs and selecting cards for your deck.

Again, that option is SUPER cheap and shouldn't use a ton of confusing cards, unlike Izzet vs Golgari, etc. Yeah, I think 2013 Booster Battle Pack all the way.

Yeah. That sounds good. I'll grab 2 of them for some replay value. Would the bigger core set toolkit be something to obtain in the future? It's a bit less cost than 2 Booster Battle packs.

Obviously, I have no idea what I'm getting into.

Maclintok wrote:

Was eyeing one of the Ravnica Event Decks but balked at the higher price tag. Are these worth getting even if I never attend one of those Friday Night Magic events? Do they actually come in a plain, usuable card box? (this could be the clincher actually).

One of my co-workers and I were buying them religiously from New Phyrexia to Dark Ascension but honestly we found the decks to be mostly crappy/not fun to play. Honestly in my opinion, the box the Event Decks came in was the only worth-while thing out of it.

It's a longer, sideways rectangular card box. The inside is split into two segments. The left segment is kind of squarish (which I've been using to hold a small dice box for counters and whatnot). The right side has more than enough space for a standard deck plus at least a 15 card sideboard. It also comes with a cardboard to separate the deck and sideboard. You can fit a deck with sleeves in it as I recall (though you can fit a lot more cards into the box if you don't sleeve them).

That said though, I've mostly been using an Ultra Pro deck box to hold my work draft deck and the extra boxes you get inside the Fat Packs for my other constructed decks.

Also of note (and not sure if it matters to your playstyle) but repeatedly the decks have become invalid for Standard play shortly after their release. You can still use them for Modern or Legacy format but mostly I just ended up breaking them apart to use some of the cards in other decks.

Taer, definitely grab the 2013 Duel of the Planewalker on Steam if they put it on sale. It fixes some issues from the 2012 version and was my gateway into the physical card game. Its great for learning the mechanics and strategy, not so much for deck building. Otherwise the intro packs for the 2013 core set gives a good start for a pre-built deck with a couple of boosters to start customizing.

And if you really get into it, buy someone's collection off Craigslist for cheap!

taer wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

That's a pretty good starting place. I don't think you'll need more than 1 of them, 285 cards, plus boosters and 100 lands, is more than enough to make 2-4 decks.

Another good option is the Duel Decks such as Venser vs Koth, Izzet vs. Golgari, and any others (just search Amazon for "mtg duel deck"). Those are balanced 1v1 deck pairs, so if you want to not be overwhelmed by deck building they are all set to go.

I think Duel Decks or two different Theme Decks are a good way to go. The other option requires you to build decks before you can play them, and I think that's backwards. Learn to play, and you'll quickly get some ideas about how to build.

The Izzet vs Golgari Duel Deck set is $25 for all you need. The one caveat is that the cards in them are complicated.

Wait a second - For a super cheap option, just get one Booster Battle pack for around $7. Get one from a "Core Set" like Magic 2013. They come with two small decks plus two boosters. The decks will be using somewhat less complex cards, and then you open the boosters and add some of those cards to your deck. It's kind of the best of both worlds in that the decks are pre-built and ready to go, but then you immediately add some cards from a booster and get the fun of opening random packs and selecting cards for your deck.

Again, that option is SUPER cheap and shouldn't use a ton of confusing cards, unlike Izzet vs Golgari, etc. Yeah, I think 2013 Booster Battle Pack all the way.

Yeah. That sounds good. I'll grab 2 of them for some replay value. Would the bigger core set toolkit be something to obtain in the future? It's a bit less cost than 2 Booster Battle packs.

Obviously, I have no idea what I'm getting into. :)

I have a hard time recommending the toolkit because when it comes to getting random cards to build with, the best ultimate value is always in boosters - because the rares are random, and you can actually get the ones that are worth big money.

So for ultimate dollar value, you want random rares from boosters. Now, it may be that the Builder's thing has a bunch of well-selected cards, but I would rather see that money spent on Return to Ravnica boosters once you're very comfortable playing with the Magic 2013 stuff you start with.

SaintFaucet wrote:
Maclintok wrote:

Was eyeing one of the Ravnica Event Decks but balked at the higher price tag. Are these worth getting even if I never attend one of those Friday Night Magic events? Do they actually come in a plain, usuable card box? (this could be the clincher actually).

One of my co-workers and I were buying them religiously from New Phyrexia to Dark Ascension but honestly we found the decks to be mostly crappy/not fun to play. Honestly in my opinion, the box the Event Decks came in was the only worth-while thing out of it.

It's a longer, sideways rectangular card box. The inside is split into two segments. The left segment is kind of squarish (which I've been using to hold a small dice box for counters and whatnot). The right side has more than enough space for a standard deck plus at least a 15 card sideboard. It also comes with a cardboard to separate the deck and sideboard. You can fit a deck with sleeves in it as I recall (though you can fit a lot more cards into the box if you don't sleeve them).

That said though, I've mostly been using an Ultra Pro deck box to hold my work draft deck and the extra boxes you get inside the Fat Packs for my other constructed decks.

Also of note (and not sure if it matters to your playstyle) but repeatedly the decks have become invalid for Standard play shortly after their release. You can still use them for Modern or Legacy format but mostly I just ended up breaking them apart to use some of the cards in other decks.

Thanks SaintFaucet, very helpful! From the sound of things those Event Decks are sort of failed experiments? I will have to check back at my local game store to see what they have in terms of deck boxes but those Ultra Pro ones look perfect.

There are some Ultra Pro boxes that come with sleeves, too. I just added one to my Amazon wish list. I've been trying to come up with stuff to put on there. It's getting harder in this age of digital media!