Anyone else here play Magic the Gathering?

[JtheDuelist]

Just curious- I would like to see how other people build their decks (and maybe help a certain newb out with his own *wink, wink*), see different strategies, talk the about the game, and what not.

 

[flashbax]

I only recently stopped myself when I sold my inventory for my store; otherwise I've been playing since Alpha/Beta and I'm sure one day I'll dive back into it. I sucked at the competitive part of the game, I just enjoyed having fun.

 

[JtheDuelist]

I only recently stopped myself when I sold my inventory for my store; otherwise I've been playing since Alpha/Beta and I'm sure one day I'll dive back into it. I sucked at the competitive part of the game, I just enjoyed having fun.

I started back in November when my brother got me a Hautli Planeswalker deck from the Ixalan line so we could start playing together (I had gave him a Jace Planeswalker deck from the same line for his birthday). Before Magic the Gathering, I used to play YuGiOh, but Konami made it so freaking difficult with their new Pendulums and Links, making me lose interest in YuGiOh. At the time, I was looking for a deck around dragons (like I used to use in YuGiOh) and I came across the Nicol Bolas Hour of Devastation deck and immediately fell in love with its Afflict series of cards. Now if I could get my hands on a copy of Scorpion God, Scarab God, and Locust God from Hour of Devastation, my deck would be perfect for me. I did pull a copy of the other modern Nicol Bolas, giving me both modern Nicol Bolases (I have both God-Pharoah and Deceiver versions) from a booster pack, which gives me one more Planeswalker than my brother (much to his dismay).

 

[Poryg]

I used to play this game, with my favorite color being blue. However, Wizards had made it so that pure blue is 100% unplayable on competitive levels and I just couldn't compete on high levels. I didn't like the image of building myself a thousand-times-seen blue-white control though or stuff like that. So in the end I stopped. And seeing how fast the game has become nowadays, I may never return to it, especially since the rules have changed a great deal too.
I used to play some Yugioh too. However, in our country we didn't have good cards to buy. So in the end I couldn't build a competitive deck.... And eventually decided to drop out. Nowadays I don't play Yugioh exactly due to pendulums, links and other shenanigans that have made the game ridiculously fast. It's always ABCs, darkness stuff, Blue-eyes, Dark-magician, Elemental hero, Zoodiac and one other archetype I've forgotten the name of. It's just annoying.

 

[JtheDuelist]

@Poryg Link Summons killed YuGiOh for me. It was also disheartening when I found out my only 4 MtG foils combined are worth more than my two 5-inch binders (yes, that size exists) packed to the gills containing my entire YuGiOh card collection I spent 12+ years collecting. Thanks, Wizards, for ruining my life's only real collection.

 

[Poryg]

The price of many MTG cards has gone way up. For example I could sell one card I had bought for 20 czk... For 550 czk.

 

[JtheDuelist]

@Poryg I took my entire collection of YuGiOh cards to a local card shop to appraise the collection and maybe sell a few cards a few weeks ago They only opened to the first binder to the first few pages, then gave me the stank eye and said and I quote "Sorry, sir, but your collection is too old to appraise, you old coot".The cards the clerk saw when she opened the binder where from a set that was only two weeks old at the time mixed in with some first gen cards. She literally called me "old coot" because of those old first gen cards (mind you I'm not even in my 30s yet).

 

[Poryg]

Then keep the collection, you might miss it after you sell it

 

[JtheDuelist]

Then keep the collection, you might miss it after you sell it

Very true- would miss my Nordic/Aesir cards since I love Norse mythology.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

I stopped playing Magic before most people started playing :B. (I played from late Beta to Homelands. God Homelands was trash)

 

[JtheDuelist]

@Touchfuzzy I started with Ixalan with a Hautli planeswalker deck, but now I focus on Hour of Devastation and modifying my Nicol Bolas the Deceiver planeswalker deck, since almost the entire set fits my general TCG/CCG playstyle- aggression mixed with control. Now if only I could get my hands on a copy of Scarab God, Locust God, and Scorpion God and one more copy of Abrade... Honestly, from the things I've read, Ixalan (the first half, not Rivals of Ixalan) is the modern day Homelands in terms of if the cards were good... If you ever want to get back into the game, I can vouch on how good the Nicol Bolas the Deceiver deck and the Goblins vs. Merfolk set are as a beginner set (Hour of Devastation's Nicol Bolas deck is probably the strongest, and the hardest to counter, of modern out-of-the-package decks)

 

[BehemothTheBeast]

I stopped playing Magic before most people started playing :B. (I played from late Beta to Homelands. God Homelands was trash)

The old alpha and beta cards are worth a lot of money (sometimes). I recently got back into it... made $200 hawking my old cards and bought newer ones while keeping some profit.

My newest deck puts out 3/4 monsters with 12 points of damage on the first turn. You only have twenty life lol.

 

[JtheDuelist]

@BehemothTheBeast 12 damage on turn 1? Sounds like my brother's mono-red Goblins-only deck (the only deck of his my Bolas deck has trouble dealing with)... There are not very many helpful deck lists that help my Bolas deck out that doesn't ask me to spend $200+ on singles...

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I played for a little while in college but it was a little too expensive for my rice and beans budget, lol. At events, a lot of the people on campus weren't very welcoming either so I sort of packed all my cards away after a couple years.

 

[BehemothTheBeast]

@BehemothTheBeast 12 damage on turn 1? Sounds like my brother's mono-red Goblins-only deck (the only deck of his my Bolas deck has trouble dealing with)... There are not very many helpful deck lists that help my Bolas deck out that doesn't ask me to spend $200+ on singles...

Goblins can do 50 damage in 5 turns with my deck I made for a friend, that's why I had to make a deck that was even faster than goblins lol. Goblins build up fast and reproduce fast, as does most red decks - fast damage. You have to take them out early in a serious game, or either have a deck that builds up slow and hard but can resist the goblins. 1 point damage to all creatures can knock out most goblin decks unless they are getting +1/+1

 

[kaukusaki]

I hadn't played since after kamigawa (showing my age here lol). I played Yu-Gi-Oh until my decks were no longer competitive. After I went to the 2004 regionals I just didn't have time like I used to. I kept up casually until my decks were stolen and it got too expensive to replace.
I also played a lot of other card games (highlander, cardcaptor Sakura, xiaolin showdown, duel masters, monster collection for example) and after awhile there weren't many players for the games I wanted to play.

 

[kaukusaki]

I hate my phone likes to double post >_<

 

[CaptainRadish]

I used to play Magic with red-white decks when Ravnica came out. I played mostly for fun and learned the tournament scene wasn't for me. I liked Tarkir block, but lost interest after that. Pathfinder became my game of choice later.

 

[ValkyrieDesign]

I used to play it a ton but my dad confiscated all my cards and I was too disheartened to try and rebuild my collection. I had 1000s and many were rare so I felt like it was useless start over. I want to get a few decks though so I can just play the game casually again. It's a great game!

 

[Tarq]

I'd hate to be a jerk and hi-jack a thread (so please do erase this paragraph if you feel I'm doing so mods) but I've been making a TCG in RM for about 18 months and people who actually have experience with TCGs would be able to give really useful feedback on balancing and the likes. So, if anyone ever has ten minutes free it would be massively appreciated if they'd check my thread out ( https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/sovereignty-tcg.78151/ ).

More on-topic though, I felt I was too late for Magic by the time I'd heard about it (its never been too big in my area). My experiences with Pokemon and YuGiOh left me viewing that TCGs generally suffered from too much powercreep and overcomplexity after a few seasons. I did try giving one of the online versions a go a couple of years back but the tutorial was incredibly frustrating as it wayyy over-explained basics like how to attack and how land cards worked; I get that it had to explain the game to people with zero TCG experience but if it put me off (someone who's probably going to be a little more motivated to play than just any stray gamer) then its got serious barriers to entry issues. It was especially bad since, iirc, the tutorial was the first few levels of the campaign mode so there was no way to skip them and learn through playing a few matches.