In the past months, I've become less interested in gaming and more interested in a certain card game (well, I guess it's still gaming, just not the same kind). It makes me a sad panda, but I've been extremely disinterested in all the new releases that everyone seems to fall in love with. I think I've just been in a bit of a slump lately, so I'm hoping a great game will come along soon and help me get back in the swing of things.
Until that happens, I'm going to embrace Magic: The Gathering as my savior from exhausting college classes that require me to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. As most of you probably know, Magic is a trading card game. It involves trading and playing with collectable cards just like Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh. The only difference between Magic and other card games is that Magic doesn't suck.
I love card games. I've played tons Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. For years I've wanted to give Magic a try, but I could never get past the theme of the game. I'm not much for elves and goblins and all that other fantasy crap, so Magic couldn't pull me in as easily as other card games did with their bright and colorful anime tie-ins (Seriously, I even have some Digimon and Mega Man NT Warrior cards somewhere). Only last year did I finally make the leap into Magic.
In the months that I've played, here are a few things I've learned:
-Magic is better than every other card game ever. It's been around for something like 16 years now and it still hasn't lost sight of its original concept. When I look at games like Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon, it seems like all the new cards are just retardedly overpowered or the rules have been modified so much that I don't even know how to play anymore. With Magic, it's the same game that I learned how to play nine years ago (through a demo on the computer, as I had no friends to play the actual game with).
-Almost everybody and their mom has played at some point in their lives. It seems like every time I go to my local video game store to buy a few boosters, one of the employees will make a comment on the last time they played. Of course, they always name a set from 5+ years ago that I've bearly even heard of because I'm the noob that just started with Shadowmoor (which was released in April 2008).
-Booster drafts are fun. If you don't know, a booster draft is a type of tournament in which each player buys three booster packs (1 booster = 15 random cards) and sits at a table with other players. Each player opens a pack, looks at the cards, selects one card, and keeps it. Once the players have made their selection, they pass the pack to the person next to them. This is repeated until all the boosters have been opened and everyone has a stack of 45 cards. At this point, each person makes a deck out of their cards and they play a tournament. There's a ton of strategy involved and it's a lot less retarded than constructed formats (because you can't just fork out a couple hundred dollars to buy the best cards out there and make a deck out of it).
I've learned a lot more, of course, such as how to play the game and not completely fail at it, but I think I'll leave that for other blogs. I'm very interested in Magic at the moment and I can't see that stopping any time soon, considering there's it's not tied to some crappy anime that I'll grow out of in a few months. If you've never given Magic a shot, I highly recommend picking up some theme decks for you and a friend and trying it out. If you're friendless or all your friends are just dicks, you can also give Magic Online a try. If you'd like to learn how to play, check out
these tutorial videos. Seriously, whenever somebody new to the game joins my little group of Magic players, we make them watch those videos and they trounce me right afterward.
Be sure to check my blog later for some Magic fun for the whole family. Well, fun if your family likes making fake magic cards. :P
(# 0) on 01/21/2009 10:38
That booster draft thing sounds fun - do you just split the cost of the cards among the guys, or is a box of cards provided by the tournament or something?
Side note : do people still buy Yu-Gi-Oh cards? I came across a few hundred of them, some more rare than others, and have no use for them whatsoever. Is there still an interest in this kind of thing? Is ebay flooded with people like me trying to unload these things?
(# 1) on 01/21/2009 10:51
(# 2) on 01/21/2009 10:56
Also, what type of deck do you play? I have a tendency to go with burn or overrun decks. If you want an example of what my decks tend to be like just look up vigor and Ashling the pilgrim, my favorite combo that came out of the Llorwyn set.
(# 3) on 01/21/2009 11:09
Yeah, I play too. If anyone is in the Des Moines area and wants to play, I'm all for it.
(# 4) on 01/21/2009 11:11
You can usually play booster drafts at card shops for a fee which covers your boosters (you keep all you draft, so you get your three boosters worth, at least) and a few dollars help pay for additional prizes. My friend bought a booster box a few weeks ago and we had a draft at my house. It was only like $10 a person to pay him back for the box (but then again, he gave us a lot of prize packs out of his own pocket).
As for Yu-Gi-Oh cards, I'm on the same boat, lol. I have a bunch of rares are probably worth a $100-200 if I actually found somebody who wanted them. :P
@Aborto TheFetus
I'll be picking the XBLA game up for sure.
Blue/Black is my favorite as far as colors go, but I'm mostly an Artifact kinda guy. :D
(# 5) on 01/21/2009 11:15
(# 6) on 01/21/2009 11:19
(# 7) on 01/21/2009 11:29
(# 8) on 01/21/2009 11:33
7/7 flying trample bitches! lord of the pit, my favorite card but i won't play it unless i have a breeding pit in play. wheel of fortune is tits too.
(# 9) on 01/21/2009 12:34
(# 10) on 01/21/2009 13:00
(# 11) on 01/21/2009 13:41
but i do miss playing it and have been trying to find my cards for so long.
(# 12) on 01/21/2009 13:53
Also, drafting is awesome and it's a good way to play the game without having to drop an assload of money and also a great way to get some new cards. A friend and I are planning on attempting to organize a draft every other month or so. Not taking prizes into consideration, it's about $10 a person to play which is not bad at all. We had a blast the last time we did it, so I'm looking forward to doing something similar when the next set comes out February 6th.
(# 13) on 01/21/2009 14:51
Oh well, nice knowing you.
(# 14) on 01/21/2009 15:01
I just recently got back into Magic, about a year ago after a hiatus during High School. Currently I play cards from 10th edition up.
(# 15) on 01/21/2009 16:25
i just made a black/white Obama deck.
And oh shit, CONFLUX!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(# 16) on 01/21/2009 17:36
Or in other words, a better White/Green.
ProTip: Buy the Jace/Chandra Duel Decks pack. That shit is bananas.
(# 17) on 01/21/2009 21:15
I keep forgetting that I have the PC MGO installed...
We should get people together to play at PAX or something. That'd be cool.
(# 18) on 01/21/2009 21:36
We still need to play on MTGO sometime! :O
(# 19) on 01/22/2009 07:28
(# 20) on 01/25/2009 17:51
(# 21) on 02/11/2009 23:01
While my favorite color has always been green, I've found that I'm better with red, but I almost always play blue in drafts, and also almost always come up with a milling strategy (forcing an opponent to put cards directly from their deck into their graveyard, eventually losing due to not having any cards to draw)