Magic: The Gathering (TCG) Catch-all

I'd recommend Magic 2012 if that were on sale. I feel like that one had more interesting deck designs although to be fair I haven't been exposed to any of the 2013 DLC decks.

2013 is a pretty good bare-bones experience right out of the gate on iOS and you don't have to pay a cent.

TheWalt wrote:

Yeah, coverage has improved dramatically, both in the commentators and the technology to 'ESPN'-ize the coverage.

I didn't catch any PT Dragon's Maze coverage, but in PT Gatecrash they were still having the occasional embarrassing technical mistake or timing snafu. It's certainly watchable now though, which is a huge improvement from what it used to be.

They need to contract with Sony for the tech they used for that Playstation Eye CCG. Theoretically they could suspend a camera over the table to "read" the game state, and then render that out onto our screens with the Duels of the Planeswalkers graphics. I doubt they have the budget to develop that just for pro tour coverage though. Maybe one day they'll decide to let you use a webcam to play with paper cards in Magic Online...

As for Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013, the DLC decks are definitely more interesting since they're all at least 2 colors. In the base game 9 of the 10 decks are monocolor.

Anyone around playing standard after Dragon Maze? I took a time out shortly after RTR and now I'm looking to get back in.

Looking for a solid deck that won't be too expensive to put together for playing Events in Magic Online. I have most staples from green, black and red up until RTR, also some in white and blue. So basically I would be up to anything, but something that doesn't include too many expensive cards from Gatecrash and Dragon Maze would be nice.

Going to look for top decks over the weekend asking just in case someone here is up to date in the current meta - any input would be welcome!

If you have the cards you describe, Jund had a pretty good finish recently, and it's mostly pre-RTR.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

If you have the cards you describe, Jund had a pretty good finish recently, and it's mostly pre-RTR.

Jund sounds good. Unfortunately I don't have Lilianas (played mostly Zombies in Black) which are at around 30EUR atm (which is insane!) and no M13 Garruks which are at around 10EUR. Those two seem to be central to the current Jund decks. But maybe I'll find cheaper lists.

Jund would be cool, especially since I already have cards like huntmaster, Thragtusk and bonfire (probably all of those are cheap now, I'm afraid to even go check).

I also noticed that BR Zombies seems still viable and the only expensive addition that I don't have are Thundermaw Hellkites for around 12 EUR (which is already a little crazy for a single digital card).

Let's see if I find a competitive deck I'll have to spend less than 50 EUR on... In the end I'll probably have to buy one or two new expensive staples...

Those other cards aren't cheap, so you still have some value there, but it sounds like all of your cards will rotate out of Standard in the next four months.

You might consider selling some of your stuff now, before it rotates out.

I barely ever play constructed, myself, because it's so expensive.

Deck ideas?

More expensive:

Cinderella story:

Fun stuff! And nice to get to know some of the new cards. But all block constructed. Need to check prices but I guess it would be more expensive to get into than standard right now for me if I find the right deck.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Those other cards aren't cheap, so you still have some value there, but it sounds like all of your cards will rotate out of Standard in the next four months.

You might consider selling some of your stuff now, before it rotates out.

I barely ever play constructed, myself, because it's so expensive.

That's actually what I did when I started with Magic Online. I bought a collection and sold or traded everything that would rotate out. But I had to do a lot of trading and checking prices and I don't really enjoy that part of the game and don't have the time to the trading now. I just want to play and I enjoy constructed more than draft or sealed. But yes, it's expensive and not worth it if you're not going to play a lot.

I was hoping they would reintroduce leagues this year but apparently that's not going to happen until next year.

Other alternative for online would be pauper. But I don't know any of the decks yet. It's what I will be going for if I don't find a standard deck to play that puts some of the cards I have to good use.

Well as I said, Standard will rotate in a few months when the new block begins, so the cards you have now are soon to be out of date for that format. There's not a long - term plan with what you have.

What you should really do, imho, is start playing a bit when the new core set drops this summer, and continue on with each new set. Play block constructed starting with the next set, and those cards will be useful for Standard for two years.

Just my 2 cents! Keep us posted.

Nice to see local boy Wescoe still competing at the top tiers!

MEATER wrote:

I was hoping they would reintroduce leagues this year but apparently that's not going to happen until next year.

They have said 'next year' for the last five years. I've given up.

ranalin wrote:

Nice to see local boy Wescoe still competing at the top tiers!

He writes for TCGPlayer.com if you want to check out his tournament report or subsequent mailbag.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
ranalin wrote:

Nice to see local boy Wescoe still competing at the top tiers!

He writes for TCGPlayer.com if you want to check out his tournament report or subsequent mailbag.

That deck tech feature was my first exposure aside from a few glimpses during the duels coverage. Cool guy, well-spoken.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Well as I said, Standard will rotate in a few months when the new block begins, so the cards you have now are soon to be out of date for that format. There's not a long - term plan with what you have.

What you should really do, imho, is start playing a bit when the new core set drops this summer, and continue on with each new set. Play block constructed starting with the next set, and those cards will be useful for Standard for two years.

Just my 2 cents! Keep us posted.

I got into Magic again after over a decade because I really liked Innistrad at a draft. So far what I've seen of Ravnica sealed and block didn't really hit me the same way. So I'm really not interested in playing block. But that's just my personal preference. I did play some with the paper cards of RTR and GC and just didn't like it as much as M13 and the IN block.

Also I don't think it's cheaper. I did compare back when I got into Magic Online beginning of last year and it was pretty much the same but the diversity of decks was less interesting comparing block vs. standard.

Having that said I did round down the decks that seem competitive at the moment and use some of the cards I have and it boils down to The Aristocrats and Gruul Aggro. Both still are around 75-80EUR to get all the cards I'm missing but I'll go check what I can get for my Huntmasters, Snapcasters etc. and see if I can get that down to the 50 EUR mark. Maybe I'll start with a cheaper sideboard or look for other ways to cut corners. But first I'm going to check how good both decks hold up against what else is running around and see if it's worth it. Maybe with all that I'll be so busy that I won't even have time to play

I also looked up some pauper decks and was surprised to find a very cheap modern deck with Soul Sisters.

But I'll probably get a pauper deck first. Definitely the best investment and only around 20-30 EUR.

LeapingGnome wrote:
MEATER wrote:

I was hoping they would reintroduce leagues this year but apparently that's not going to happen until next year.

They have said 'next year' for the last five years. I've given up. :(

I just started Magic Online last year. I never even had a chance to play leagues. So I'll just stay optimistic. I missed out on a lot of fun there...

I miss the days when you didn't choose a deck, you built one. I guess that's what Limited is for.

And home-brew decks still need the good cards.

Vargen wrote:

I miss the days when you didn't choose a deck, you built one. I guess that's what Limited is for.

And home-brew decks still need the good cards.

It's not like you can't still do that. But if you want to play tournaments it will take more time to get to similar results.

There are plenty of casual formats; I think Commander (EDH) is awesome.

Commander is awesome if you already have a lot of cards lying around otherwise its even more crazy to get into than standard from my experience.

It's very popular in Germany. Actually more people play it than any other format.

If you start fresh you will have to do a lot of research to get a deck together that works and is not just a heap of cards. Most of the decks I've seen were far more expensive than the average deck I encountered playing standard at local FNMs.

I ended up selling pretty much all my cards on Magic Online today, btw. Seems like I pretty much got all the money I put in last year back in TIX. Even a little extra. I absolutely didn't expect that but some of the Mirrodin and M12 cards I had still had value and most of the Innistrad cards had actually gained in value.

I put together three pauper decks for around 15 TIX: A Naya List I found, a Mono Red Aggro Deck and a Red Blue Aggro Deck. This will be enough to just be playing for a while and ease into the format. It's what I would recommend to anyone interested in playing Online. It seems like the money you can spend on a single standard deck will buy you about all the staples for the archetype decks in pauper...

I thought the beauty of Commander was that you can just throw together a selection of whatever you've got and still have a good time.

Now, there may be some confusion, in that as I understand it, there's a competitive Commander scene in Europe, possibly emphasizing two - player. Is that how it is in your experience?

Here in the US, it's a casual, multiplayer format. While you can use a bunch of expensive dual lands and such, you'll be just fine with stuff like Guildgates and zendikar refuges, etc.

It's just my preference but I prefer to work with what I have but on a grander scale than limited so that means I'll be on the lagging edge in deck tech for Standard or any other competitive format. At some point I would like to cobble together a Standard deck without following a Top 8 or Pro Tour-winning template and try my hand at the local FNM.

But if FNM glory is all I'm really wanting out of my reunion with Magic then it will definitely become more of an investment in both time and money. I think I have to become more comfortable with staying casual.

A web site i like for helping with rules is:
http://internationalmagicjudges.net/

A link in there is to a judge blog I like to read. Along with a 24/7 judge chat if you have specific questions.
http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rulestips/

Another site where I like to listen to a few Magic based Podcasts. I highly recommend "Monday Night Magic", "Judge Cast", "Horde of Notions", and "The Mana Pool".
http://www.mtgcast.com/

Then theres the obligatory artical sites:
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/
starcitygames.com

Maclintok wrote:

It's just my preference but I prefer to work with what I have but on a grander scale than limited so that means I'll be on the lagging edge in deck tech for Standard or any other competitive format. At some point I would like to cobble together a Standard deck without following a Top 8 or Pro Tour-winning template and try my hand at the local FNM.

But if FNM glory is all I'm really wanting out of my reunion with Magic then it will definitely become more of an investment in both time and money. I think I have to become more comfortable with staying casual.

I think you've got to find like-minded players. I'm such a Spike that the idea of playing anything other than a cutthroat competitive deck seems bizarre to me. I recognize that more relaxed players might have fun, but that's just not who I am.

Except for Commander - I have no problem with the idea of throwing 100 fun/powerful cards together, playing in a group and just seeing what happens. I'll still try to win, but I'm not net-decking or intentionally building combos into my deck.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Now, there may be some confusion, in that as I understand it, there's a competitive Commander scene in Europe, possibly emphasizing two - player. Is that how it is in your experience?

It's not really competitive as in it is no tournament scene (though there are a few tournaments since it's that popular) but those that play commander really go deep into figuring out the best cards and trading towards them.

It's still a casual format (and pretty much all that people play outside of FNM) and since the deck is 100 cards and you can only play single cards it still evens out quite well. But maybe due to the fact that in Germany most people who play magic have been playing for years and have a decent collection you usually do not get to compete with them if you just started out and have cards from one or two sets.

So I guess here it is more the format people switch to who want to keep playing but do not want to keep up spending much money to compete in standard.

Maclintok wrote:

It's just my preference but I prefer to work with what I have but on a grander scale than limited so that means I'll be on the lagging edge in deck tech for Standard or any other competitive format. At some point I would like to cobble together a Standard deck without following a Top 8 or Pro Tour-winning template and try my hand at the local FNM.

But if FNM glory is all I'm really wanting out of my reunion with Magic then it will definitely become more of an investment in both time and money. I think I have to become more comfortable with staying casual.

I started out the same way both in 1994 or when I first got into magic and last year when I got back into it with Innistrad.

But right now I just don't have the time for deck building and testing. It's why I started to play Magic Online so I could test more and faster and observe other decks whenever I had the time. Also the less played cards on Magic Online are crazy cheap so it's easy to test out decks that do not use the regular staples.

In the end time is definitely the limiting factor. You have to play a lot to get into the meta. And if you play FNM you have to get an idea of the local meta, too. Those who play expensive decks won't switch often. And you can start buidling decks that are good at dealing with them. Rogue decks like Kenny Öbergs you posted work since they take advantage of the meta (like he says in the video). That's why deck building is so damn complicated if you want to compete in a format like standard.

The best alternative imho is to get 4 or 6 people, each gets 6 boosters to start with and then you play a tournament where you can only trade with each other and you get two new boosters every round. It limits the possibilities and thus the amount of time necessary to fiddle with the deck and still provides the fun of deckbuilding.

Yeah, that's like a sealed league. I'd love to do that some time, but it's hard to get everyone to be able to come every time.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Yeah, that's like a sealed league. I'd love to do that some time, but it's hard to get everyone to be able to come every time.

What we did (or tried to do) was not to meet up all at once but rather have everyone play 1on1 whenever they had time. And you could challenge all others only once each round. Then just count on points for each round: win 2, loss 1. So it's always worth playing.

It's works pretty well with co-workers so you can just play a best of three after work and be done.

MEATER wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Yeah, that's like a sealed league. I'd love to do that some time, but it's hard to get everyone to be able to come every time.

What we did (or tried to do) was not to meet up all at once but rather have everyone play 1on1 whenever they had time. And you could challenge all others only once each round. Then just count on points for each round: win 2, loss 1. So it's always worth playing.

It's works pretty well with co-workers so you can just play a best of three after work and be done.

A sealed league sounds like a fantastic idea. I am on the cusp of getting together a rag tag group together for our first sealed event and I think we could adopt this model right off the bat.

Would anyone be interested in trying to do a GWJ sealed league on Magic Online?

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Would anyone be interested in trying to do a GWJ sealed league on Magic Online?

I do not play MTG:O but I would for this. What's the entry cost for sealed leagues in Online?

I would, does it let you setup private group events like that?

LeapingGnome wrote:

I would, does it let you setup private group events like that?

No, and I wish it would. First they have to get their sh*t to the point where it doesn't crash during round 8 of an online PTQ, I imagine.

If we did this, it would be entirely Goodjer-run. I'd be happy to organize. We'd schedule things through the forums. We'd also need a way to verify the contents of each person's card pool; my first thought is that you'd open your pool in front of one other person using Google Hangout screen sharing, but any other ideas are welcome.

Each player would need 6 packs, which are cheapest on the marketplace rather than from Wizards. I'd estimate costs at around $21. More, if you want to have some prizes.

So in my proposed method, you'd open the six packs live in front of someone else and both screen shot the contents. You would not reveal them to rest of the league.

Thoughts?