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I've tried several times over the years to get back into Magic. It's just too expensive in the long run and I don't even recognize the rules any longer.
I yearn for a good card game. But no one I know would play with me. I don't live an such a... Diverse community.
But I'll be able to find a good tractor price way quick!
But I'll be able to find a good tractor price way quick!
@DAXELMAN - Yeah, the cards are for both players. You split up the land and each take a booster pack!
I love this game, I really do! But I live in a small town of 4000 inhabitants on a coastal archipeligo, so its a bit hard for me to find people to play with... But soon, when I move to the city, I wont have that problem.
For those of you who don't have anyone to play with, there's always Magic Online. Some people don't really want to spend money on virtual cards, but it's still pretty fun even if you don't spend a lot.
I'm going to write up a comparison between the paper game and the online one sometime soon if anybody's interested.
I'm going to write up a comparison between the paper game and the online one sometime soon if anybody's interested.
Tsunamikitsune: OOOOH. Can't use use the Magic Cards you already bought on the Online game, like Chaotix or something?
I remember Yu-Gi-Oh and Duel Masters cards had some sort of s/n on the bottom of the card, I think....
I remember Yu-Gi-Oh and Duel Masters cards had some sort of s/n on the bottom of the card, I think....
Whoah, I thought they were kicking it olde skoole when I saw the Lava Axe, but then I saw the Grizzly Bears. Those have been around FOREVER, since the very first printing 15 years ago. Holy carp, I'm old.
@DAXELMAN
No, unfortunately. D:
I'd love it if they had some kind of super futuristic card scanning technology to make that possible, because I often find myself wondering why I'm missing a card.....until I realize I have it in paper rather than online.
The codes in Yugioh were kind of nice, but it was really easy to go online and copy the codes down. Also, you were limited to one code per card. :/
No, unfortunately. D:
I'd love it if they had some kind of super futuristic card scanning technology to make that possible, because I often find myself wondering why I'm missing a card.....until I realize I have it in paper rather than online.
The codes in Yugioh were kind of nice, but it was really easy to go online and copy the codes down. Also, you were limited to one code per card. :/
I don't understand how this is a two player starter pack with only 1 booster a piece and ten lands... that's only 25 cards. At the bare minimum, a limited deck consists of 40.
And isn't this a step backwards for you? If I remember correctly, your second "magic" c-blog was about how you went out and bought the real starter pack that had enough product in it for two people to make a deck and play.
It seems to me that your hand is in the pockets of some WotC marketing exec. You could be taking dollars, or you could just be grabbing at free product... Wizards knows that a large portion of their target demographic are gamers, and if they can get a blogger on a popular video game website to endorse their product, then they're bound to get quite a few new customers. I'd give you a 'wag of the finger', but then I'd just be lying if I said I wouldn't do the same thing given the opportunity.
And isn't this a step backwards for you? If I remember correctly, your second "magic" c-blog was about how you went out and bought the real starter pack that had enough product in it for two people to make a deck and play.
It seems to me that your hand is in the pockets of some WotC marketing exec. You could be taking dollars, or you could just be grabbing at free product... Wizards knows that a large portion of their target demographic are gamers, and if they can get a blogger on a popular video game website to endorse their product, then they're bound to get quite a few new customers. I'd give you a 'wag of the finger', but then I'd just be lying if I said I wouldn't do the same thing given the opportunity.
@DynamicSheep - Right, it totally does. The point of the starter decks is to acclimate people to the game. Forty cards is a pretty intense number for a rookie.
And yeah, I didn't buy these. If you took the time to read the article or look at the pretty pictures, you'll notice that this was a preview and that there's four starter packs lined up in a row. Not trying to be an ass, but I'm being straight here. I'm having a great time with Magic and I'm more than happy to get the word out!
And yeah, I didn't buy these. If you took the time to read the article or look at the pretty pictures, you'll notice that this was a preview and that there's four starter packs lined up in a row. Not trying to be an ass, but I'm being straight here. I'm having a great time with Magic and I'm more than happy to get the word out!
"If you took the time to read the article..."
I did read the article, and it exactly says:
The set packs quite a wallop for its ten dollar price point. Here’s what you get:
Two 15-card Tenth Edition core set booster packs
"...or look at the pretty pictures..."
Did that too. In the first picture we get a big fancy WotC logo. All well in good, but when put into context with the quoted text below, anyone can see how I've drawn the conclusion that you've got a "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" deal going on and are using the c-blogs and your status on the site to exploit that.
Beyond that it reads like a friggin' press release with such gems as:
"Recently, Wizards of the Coast debuted their Two-Player Starter Game, the perfect package for those of you that have considered Magic, but turned away by the seemingly endless amounts of cards."
"It is available everywhere Magic cards are sold, including major retailers like Wal-Mart."
"The set packs quite a wallop for its ten dollar price point."
"As you can see, that’s not that bad at all for a starter pack."
"Wizards worked with me and taught me that this game is pretty hip."
and my personal favorite:
"Each booster pack has a FOIL in it, which is great..."
In the second picture we get a glimpse of the product. Four "15-card Tenth Edition core set booster packs", sitting in front of an oddly shaped box. These "booster packs" appear to be, in actuality, tiny cardboard boxes of cards that are all of one color. I've drawn this conclusion based on the fact that these look similar to the starter decks released during 9th edition which were all one color. Beyond that, if the package did, in fact, come with four booster packs and 20 land, it would be nigh impossible to make a cohesive deck to play a game with. Core Set booster packs have cards assigned randomly, covering 5 colors, plus colorless (artifacts and non-basic lands), and all of the card types. If you were to take your thirty random cards and wittle them down to two colors, you'd be looking at about ten cards. Add in 10 of each land type that supports the colors in your deck, and you've got 30 cards. You draw 7, so you've got a 23 turn max game where every 2 out of 3 turns you're drawing land. If you happen to get a low casting cost creature into play by the fourth turn, you may be able to get in 20 damage by the time you deck yourself. Again, this scenario is nigh impossible. So chances are much more likely that the "booster packs" are not booster packs at all, and are instead color-themed mini-packs. (Given this conclusion, I can't understand why they'd exclude red. It's one of the easiest colors to grasp.)
On to the third picture. We see a close up picture of the booster, and standing next to it is some sort of miniature figure. Now, based on what you exactly said comes in this package, I have no idea what that's supposed to be. You said the package includes "Two 15-card Tenth Edition core set booster packs, 20 assorted basic land cards, A quick-start insert". Miniature isn't listed. The miniature looks like it could be some black aligned creature from the MtG universe... but then again, it could be a miniature of the shadow beasts from TLoZ: Twilight Princess. Perhaps you included this for scale so everyone will be able to tell just how big the cards are?
Finally, the fourth picture. In this picture I can see all the cards laid out like 100 dollar bills on a rappers coffee table. Very ballah! Upon closer inspection though, I see that the cards are all different colors... red included!
"Snip snap! Looks like Brad may have learned me a thing or two about his free Magic products!" "Now wait a minute,' I say to my sassy black side, 'there must be more to this story, something I'm not seeing. I must look harder." And so I did. I checked the fourth picture in your attached photos, and found that there were two tenth edition booster packs included with this starter game. The two packs, I'm sure, are where the red cards came from.
Now that I've discovered that there are two booster packs included with the package, and four color-aligned card board boxes which may or may not have cards in them, I'm left wondering "Just how many cards are in this starter game?" For ten dollars there's simply no way that Wizards is giving you two boosters (four if your comment is to be believed) PLUS four additional packs of cards. Two boosters alone is worth $6! Now, if you're to be believed and there are FOUR boosters in this pack, then that's $12! On top of that we've got the packs, and the possibly included miniature figure. This set would retail easily for $20.
Now, Brad #2, I'm sure you're satisfied that I've both "took the time to read the article" and "look[ed] at the pretty pictures". My comment was not made in haste, nor are any other comments I make on the site... this is because, despite what clicking on my username might lead you to believe, I've been on this site for a good, long while and I rather like the community here.
The thing that I love most about the community is that it's full (including at the editorial level) of real life-long gamers that give you honest opinions that aren't swayed by corporate hand outs. For example, Deca Sports got a full page ad on the site a while back. Let me tell you, I was pissed to see it. That morning I turned on my laptop to see a bright yellow Destructoid and thought to myself "Fuck... Dtoid's selling out." Luckily, I was wrong, and Destructoid showed no preferential treatment to the game. It's not a game that they'd normally review, (this being the Community for hardcore gamers after all) and they didn't decide to give it a review with a big fat 11 out of 10 just because they bought some ads. This is because this site has journalistic integrity, which means something to the people that have been visiting this site for a while.
The fact that you're a contributor doesn't mean that you're exempt from being told to take your corporate shilling elsewhere. Anyone else is open to this same kind of behavior from the rest of the community. When someone comes into the C-blogs to tell us all about how awesome their video game blog on some other website is totally awesome, we ask them to kindly GTFO. The same applies when people try to promote any kind of product using the C-blogs as a platform.
In summation: Please, continue to be the Destructoid news aggregate. You're doing a wonderful job of making sure that we get everyone else's news, and it doesn't hurt that you're a half-way decent writer. (Sorry, but you sir are no Jim Sterling.) I personally ONLY visit Destructoid for my video game news, and without you around, I'm sure I wouldn't find out about stuff until much later. This isn't to discredit the hard work of the site's other contributors. Adam, Joe, Charlie and Jon all do a great job in making sure that this site can continue to be awesome. However, it's like many before me have said: You are a machine.
That being said; please, please don't sully the good name of Destructoid and the Destructoid community by posting C-blogs like this where you appear to be doing nothing more than regurgitating a Wizards of the Coast press release.
Jesus this is long! I should have just made this a C-Blog!
I did read the article, and it exactly says:
The set packs quite a wallop for its ten dollar price point. Here’s what you get:
Two 15-card Tenth Edition core set booster packs
"...or look at the pretty pictures..."
Did that too. In the first picture we get a big fancy WotC logo. All well in good, but when put into context with the quoted text below, anyone can see how I've drawn the conclusion that you've got a "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" deal going on and are using the c-blogs and your status on the site to exploit that.
Beyond that it reads like a friggin' press release with such gems as:
"Recently, Wizards of the Coast debuted their Two-Player Starter Game, the perfect package for those of you that have considered Magic, but turned away by the seemingly endless amounts of cards."
"It is available everywhere Magic cards are sold, including major retailers like Wal-Mart."
"The set packs quite a wallop for its ten dollar price point."
"As you can see, that’s not that bad at all for a starter pack."
"Wizards worked with me and taught me that this game is pretty hip."
and my personal favorite:
"Each booster pack has a FOIL in it, which is great..."
In the second picture we get a glimpse of the product. Four "15-card Tenth Edition core set booster packs", sitting in front of an oddly shaped box. These "booster packs" appear to be, in actuality, tiny cardboard boxes of cards that are all of one color. I've drawn this conclusion based on the fact that these look similar to the starter decks released during 9th edition which were all one color. Beyond that, if the package did, in fact, come with four booster packs and 20 land, it would be nigh impossible to make a cohesive deck to play a game with. Core Set booster packs have cards assigned randomly, covering 5 colors, plus colorless (artifacts and non-basic lands), and all of the card types. If you were to take your thirty random cards and wittle them down to two colors, you'd be looking at about ten cards. Add in 10 of each land type that supports the colors in your deck, and you've got 30 cards. You draw 7, so you've got a 23 turn max game where every 2 out of 3 turns you're drawing land. If you happen to get a low casting cost creature into play by the fourth turn, you may be able to get in 20 damage by the time you deck yourself. Again, this scenario is nigh impossible. So chances are much more likely that the "booster packs" are not booster packs at all, and are instead color-themed mini-packs. (Given this conclusion, I can't understand why they'd exclude red. It's one of the easiest colors to grasp.)
On to the third picture. We see a close up picture of the booster, and standing next to it is some sort of miniature figure. Now, based on what you exactly said comes in this package, I have no idea what that's supposed to be. You said the package includes "Two 15-card Tenth Edition core set booster packs, 20 assorted basic land cards, A quick-start insert". Miniature isn't listed. The miniature looks like it could be some black aligned creature from the MtG universe... but then again, it could be a miniature of the shadow beasts from TLoZ: Twilight Princess. Perhaps you included this for scale so everyone will be able to tell just how big the cards are?
Finally, the fourth picture. In this picture I can see all the cards laid out like 100 dollar bills on a rappers coffee table. Very ballah! Upon closer inspection though, I see that the cards are all different colors... red included!
"Snip snap! Looks like Brad may have learned me a thing or two about his free Magic products!" "Now wait a minute,' I say to my sassy black side, 'there must be more to this story, something I'm not seeing. I must look harder." And so I did. I checked the fourth picture in your attached photos, and found that there were two tenth edition booster packs included with this starter game. The two packs, I'm sure, are where the red cards came from.
Now that I've discovered that there are two booster packs included with the package, and four color-aligned card board boxes which may or may not have cards in them, I'm left wondering "Just how many cards are in this starter game?" For ten dollars there's simply no way that Wizards is giving you two boosters (four if your comment is to be believed) PLUS four additional packs of cards. Two boosters alone is worth $6! Now, if you're to be believed and there are FOUR boosters in this pack, then that's $12! On top of that we've got the packs, and the possibly included miniature figure. This set would retail easily for $20.
Now, Brad #2, I'm sure you're satisfied that I've both "took the time to read the article" and "look[ed] at the pretty pictures". My comment was not made in haste, nor are any other comments I make on the site... this is because, despite what clicking on my username might lead you to believe, I've been on this site for a good, long while and I rather like the community here.
The thing that I love most about the community is that it's full (including at the editorial level) of real life-long gamers that give you honest opinions that aren't swayed by corporate hand outs. For example, Deca Sports got a full page ad on the site a while back. Let me tell you, I was pissed to see it. That morning I turned on my laptop to see a bright yellow Destructoid and thought to myself "Fuck... Dtoid's selling out." Luckily, I was wrong, and Destructoid showed no preferential treatment to the game. It's not a game that they'd normally review, (this being the Community for hardcore gamers after all) and they didn't decide to give it a review with a big fat 11 out of 10 just because they bought some ads. This is because this site has journalistic integrity, which means something to the people that have been visiting this site for a while.
The fact that you're a contributor doesn't mean that you're exempt from being told to take your corporate shilling elsewhere. Anyone else is open to this same kind of behavior from the rest of the community. When someone comes into the C-blogs to tell us all about how awesome their video game blog on some other website is totally awesome, we ask them to kindly GTFO. The same applies when people try to promote any kind of product using the C-blogs as a platform.
In summation: Please, continue to be the Destructoid news aggregate. You're doing a wonderful job of making sure that we get everyone else's news, and it doesn't hurt that you're a half-way decent writer. (Sorry, but you sir are no Jim Sterling.) I personally ONLY visit Destructoid for my video game news, and without you around, I'm sure I wouldn't find out about stuff until much later. This isn't to discredit the hard work of the site's other contributors. Adam, Joe, Charlie and Jon all do a great job in making sure that this site can continue to be awesome. However, it's like many before me have said: You are a machine.
That being said; please, please don't sully the good name of Destructoid and the Destructoid community by posting C-blogs like this where you appear to be doing nothing more than regurgitating a Wizards of the Coast press release.
Jesus this is long! I should have just made this a C-Blog!
@DynamicSheep - Whoops, I thought it was obvious that I didn't buy a box of two player starter games. I sometimes assume that things speak for themselves. More importantly, I apologize for pissing you off enough to write all of that. My tone got lost in that first post. If you think that I'm rolling in the dollars because of Wizards of the Coast I can't stop you, nor should I really engage in this conversation anymore. My post is a simple attempt to show off the two player starter game - the thing that taught me how to play Magic.
There are, and have been for a long time, better TCGs than Magic. Just because its the biggest doesn't make it the best, and in my opinion its much easier and more fun to get started in games like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, which I find are much more fun to play and easier to find a game of.
I also get what DynamicSheep is worried about, Wizards have been on a marketing blitzkrieg with Magic lately as its only the truly hardcore tournament players who play it right now. Any trip into Magic Online will testify to that.
I also get what DynamicSheep is worried about, Wizards have been on a marketing blitzkrieg with Magic lately as its only the truly hardcore tournament players who play it right now. Any trip into Magic Online will testify to that.
I had to make an edit because the formatting messed up. While I had the opportunity I went ahead and clarified that I received these starter games.
@Brad Nicholson
Magic Online is actually pretty awesome, but it can be even more of a money sink (boosters and such from the store are fixed at their usual prices, so no going down the street and getting a booster for $3.29 instead of $3.99) and a lot of people have a problem with paying for virtual cards.
I already have a couple thousand paper cards and nice decks, so I'll likely be sticking to paper Magic. Especially since I can buy three packs of cards (boosters, theme decks, booster boxes, etc) and get one free at a local video game store. The best part is, everything is already cheap there! (boosters for $3.29, decks for $9.99, fat packs for $25)
Magic Online is actually pretty awesome, but it can be even more of a money sink (boosters and such from the store are fixed at their usual prices, so no going down the street and getting a booster for $3.29 instead of $3.99) and a lot of people have a problem with paying for virtual cards.
I already have a couple thousand paper cards and nice decks, so I'll likely be sticking to paper Magic. Especially since I can buy three packs of cards (boosters, theme decks, booster boxes, etc) and get one free at a local video game store. The best part is, everything is already cheap there! (boosters for $3.29, decks for $9.99, fat packs for $25)
