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The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

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Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bad analogy. If golf had specific rules about length and material of each golf club that also changed every year, requiring you to buy new clubs to match the rules, you might have a point.

Golf companies also don't sell you unknown bags of gear that may either contain something useful or a complete pile of crap.

Interesting idea for a new type of golf tournament: at the start, everybody gets a closed bag of random golf clubs, they pick one to keep, and pass the rest of the bag to the golfer to the left while they get to choose their next club from the bag they get from the right.

Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#22
post #6

While the game is great, I find the random card dynamic of the card packs pretty troubling. There is no legitimate gameplay reason why you can't just buy the cards you want for a flat rate.

This is just one of the reasons why Limited (building a 40 card deck from only packs that you and your group open) is clearly the best way to play Magic. Another: even though it seems more variance-prone, it's arguable the most skill-testing format in the game.

Though one of the cool elements of the game is that you can also play a game with a random stranger you just met. That happened a lot back when I was playing a lot in the 1990s. But that game is less likely to be balanced, and it got increasingly less balanced as more cards came out and balance and ideas started shifting around.

Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#23
post #5

I credit Magic: The Gathering for quite a few points on my SAT Verbal for all the arcane vocabulary the cards taught me! The art was/is fantastic too.

Necromancer, tabernacle, exsanguinate, odious... the list goes on.

"Student's spelling leaves a lot to be desired, but is worryingly good on occult subjects."

Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#24

In line with the spirit of the article, WotC needs acknowledge and amend this horrible mistake: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiver... "Invoke Prejudice" Whenever an opponent casts a creature spell that doesn't share a color with a creature you control, counter that spell unless that player pays X, where X is its converted mana cost. Also note that the multiverse ID is 1488!!! This is no coin…

What exactly do you expect them to do? The card was, in fact, printed; do you expect them to just remove an existing card from their database or something? They can't, like, recall it or something. What, are they going to ban it from tournament play? If you just want an instance of a person from Wizards acknowledging that that art was not something they should have printed, here's an example: http://markrosewater.tum…

  > What, are they going to ban it from tournament play?
Plenty of cards have been banned from tournament play. There's no reason why this one can't. Maybe it already has?

Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#25
post #2

> In the game, players were fashioned as “planeswalkers,” who cast spells and travel between planes of existence. The spells themselves were the cards, ... I played 1999-2004 and now 2016+, mostly non-tournament casual for this exact idea that most players seem to have forgotten. Decks with an emphasis on flavor feel more in line with the core theme of the game, and it's a very rewarding experience to roleplay a Plan…

I certainly do like the art. Although over the years, a lot of art has become more generic. The first sets of cards had in my opinion much more iconic art. Look at Llanowar Elves, for example.

And some cards are really pure works of art.

Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a bad analogy. If golf had specific rules about length and material of each golf club that also changed every year, requiring you to buy new clubs to match the rules, you might have a point.

Non rotating formats, although more expensive, are very popular, especially Modern and Commander. Outside of bans, the playable card pool is very stable and changes relatively little even with new expansions. I don't play golf, but I assume that equipment wears out and need to replaced (balls, bags if not bats).

More relevant than the equipment cost is the fees. For the price of golf club memberships you could make a lot of magic decks and enter a lot of tournaments.

Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#27
post #3

The article seems to gloss that this is one of the most potent pay to win loot-box hustles of all time, primarily targeting minors. The game is amazing but has this sleazy side. For this reason most grown-ups I know jumped to one of the living card games, Netrunner or Game of thrones.

I wish I could find my old netrunner deck.

Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#29
post #12

In line with the spirit of the article, WotC needs acknowledge and amend this horrible mistake: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiver... "Invoke Prejudice" Whenever an opponent casts a creature spell that doesn't share a color with a creature you control, counter that spell unless that player pays X, where X is its converted mana cost. Also note that the multiverse ID is 1488!!! This is no coin…

This game's thematics are about war, demons, magic, killing, slaughtering, enslaving, pestilence etc and a silly card from a decade+ ago is a problem? Don't manufacture outrage please.

I am not trying to manufacture anything. There is an obvious difference between: fantasy war game and reference to reality's past events. That is why you do not see a card called Gas Chamber: Choose a creature type, destroy all creatures of the chosen type, nor one named Crucifixion: destroy target god.

As I said, in line with an article that highlights MTG's efforts to incorporate diversity into game design, Invoke Prejudice is a card that needs to be removed from the game.

Re: The Twenty-Five Year Journey of Magic the Gathering

#30

In line with the spirit of the article, WotC needs acknowledge and amend this horrible mistake: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiver... "Invoke Prejudice" Whenever an opponent casts a creature spell that doesn't share a color with a creature you control, counter that spell unless that player pays X, where X is its converted mana cost. Also note that the multiverse ID is 1488!!! This is no coin…

What exactly do you expect them to do? The card was, in fact, printed; do you expect them to just remove an existing card from their database or something? They can't, like, recall it or something. What, are they going to ban it from tournament play? If you just want an instance of a person from Wizards acknowledging that that art was not something they should have printed, here's an example: http://markrosewater.tum…

Ban the card from legal play, remove it from their DB. Acknowledge the mistake.

I am aware such actions could fire in the wrong direction.

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