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Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

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Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#21

Post by packetlost »

havblue wrote: post #15

That looks really fun, the problem being deck assembly. My issue with modern magic is the complexity of the ever-changing rules and playing against people who have put time into it, that laugh maniacally as they combo you. The asymmetrical play makes board games more appealing. I especially love the art and simplicity of revised and third editions.

I play casually on rare occasion and mostly play unmodified or very slightly modified pre-constructed commander decks. Best way to play casually IMO.

Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#23

Post by latexr »

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #14
zeafoamrun wrote: post #7

What I've done a couple times but it is kind of a pain because it messes up the sorting of my collection is to make "packs" out of my collection and draft with friends. It's a lot easier to just buy a booster box and draft from that. But at least with old cards you don't have to contend with Sephiroth, the Ninja Turtles, and My Little Pony.

> But at least with old cards you don't have to contend with Sephiroth, the Ninja Turtles, and My Little Pony. I thought you were joking, unfortunately you weren't. Money really has no taste.

On the other hand, the Final Fantasy set release was the most fun I’ve had at a pre-release event. Personally I’d have preferred Dragon Quest with some sweet Toriyama art, but you take what you can get. I met people who had stopped playing MTG decades ago but came back for the pre-release to see some of their favourite characters. Good conversations. I’ll also say that while in the big scheme of things of course FF MTG was a financial decision, the bulk of it felt like a labour of love in the sense of “how can we translate this FF idea to MTG” with some awesome results. Cards like Overkill¹ and the concept of summons² (a mix of creature and saga). They also made sure there was something for everyone. All FF were represented, go get your favourites.

I didn’t attend the TNMT pre-release but had fun speculating on e.g. what colour each turtle would be. Within the constraints, I think they got it right (even if Sneak VS Ninjutsu is unnecessary complexity). I’m curious about Star Trek too. I can imagine four or five legendaries for Rom³ (a secondary character) alone and they could all coexist.

So yeah, they’re doing it for money and I do think there are too many of them, but at least they’re not half-assing it every time and are letting the designers really work with the possibilities. There’s only so much you can do with a generic fantasy setting.

¹ https://scryfall.com/card/fin/109/overkill

² https://scryfall.com/search?q=%28type%3Acreature+type%3Asaga...

³ https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Rom

Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#24

Post by Pikamander2 »

> What is fun?

> Here is a list of things that make a game of Magic The Gathering fun to us.

> No Discard. It sucks to have no spells to play.

> No Land destruction. It sucks to be unable to cast spells.

I've always enjoyed these kinds of house rules that let you customize TCGs to your own liking.

A while back, I bought a bulk box of common Pokemon cards and put together some decks where I limited the cards to basic or stage 1 Pokemon, no high-impact coin flips, and a single EX card per deck. I found that setup to be more enjoyable than the official format.

Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#25

Post by Pikamander2 »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #3

Random fact that I learned recently but I find it interesting: the create of MTG is a direct descendant of a US President. President James Garfield was his great-great grandfather.

Huh, the more you know. I've seen Richard Garfield's name mentioned a bunch over the years, but somehow I've never seen this fact brought up before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garfield

Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#26

Post by latexr »

zeafoamrun wrote: post #20
quora wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty common format called cube. You can grab a list from somewhere like cube cobra. Buy the cards, or use an online draft tool or print a bunch of proxies and play. Its a fun way to play with cards that are just sitting in bulk boxes and play without having to buy a whole booster box

Hmmm sounds cool, I had heard about this before and since forgotten. I think part of what I would like is to give some of the old and weird cards in my collection some play though, rather than just playing a well known cube- but then if they're too weird they might not work at all together.

Don’t fret too much about it. I have a cube and it’s mostly a random collection of cards a friend and I had. Just separate the colours into roughly equal stacks and make sure each has a reasonable ratio of creatures to other spells plus a workable mana curve.

Play a few games and you’re bound to start finding combinations of cards you never thought of before. Then after a while you can tweak it if you find something is too unbalanced. For example, in an earlier version of my cube, enchantments were disproportionately busted, so we removed some and added some more removal.

One house rule we have is that if you pick a dual land (we just have the cheap ones), at the end of the draft you can exchange it for another from outside the cube that matches the colours you’re actually playing.

Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#27

Post by codexb »

This is essentially just MTG limited -- draft or maybe team draft. Draft is my favorite part. Though I don't necessarily agree with the "things that make magic fun". Mill/Discard/Land Destro decks are fun, janky decks that rarely come together and it's fun to try and make them work.

Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#28

Post by zitoshi »

codexb wrote: post #27

This is essentially just MTG limited -- draft or maybe team draft. Draft is my favorite part. Though I don't necessarily agree with the "things that make magic fun". Mill/Discard/Land Destro decks are fun, janky decks that rarely come together and it's fun to try and make them work.

its more like sealed deck -- but the cool part is you get to trade cards with people

Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#29

Post by moss_dog »

This is cool. 40 card decks are great! In addition to being physically ergonomic, I find 40 cards to be a fun deck-building size. With about 17 lands, you get 23 choices to make of what to include outside of that, which feels like a sweet spot between deck-building expressiveness and decision fatigue.

As an aside, I'm convinced that a big reason WotC (and FLGS) are pushing commander so hard is because 100 card decks means you get to sell more cards.

Re: Magic the Gathering format: Fun 40

#30

Post by snikeris »

This is my favorite alternative form of Magic:

https://articles.starcitygames.com/articles/the-danger-room/

"I have a feeling that roughly 25% of games are decided by a player drawing too few lands, 25% of games are decided by a player drawing too many lands, 25% of games are decided by a player having a legitimate bomb not get answered immediately, and the last 25% of games are the ones that everybody hopes for where there is a ton of back-and-forth on both sides. I wanted to create a format that eliminated those unpleasant 75% of games that are unfulfilling and foster a format where ALL of the games were as interactive as possible."

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