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My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

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Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#41

Post by wyre »

seanwilson wrote: post #38
wyre wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rules are too large for there to be a concise resource to learn all of them. I would recommend learning the basic rules and then learning the intricacies playing the game with others. YouTube is probably a good resource for learning the game or go into you local game store and tell the staff you are interested in learning. Be warned, mtg is addictive and expensive.

What's a good concise guide for the basic rules then?

I can't recommend a good guide because I learned from playing with friends. But an Internet search "how to play magic the gathering" or a YouTube search for the same thing should give you a lot of lot of guides to choose from.

If you have a local game store going in and asking if they have any resources for new players hoping to learn how to play would probably be the best option, imo.

Boardgames are social thing. Magic is the best when there is a gathering.

Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#42

Post by cmaggard »

wyre wrote: post #41
seanwilson wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a good concise guide for the basic rules then?

I can't recommend a good guide because I learned from playing with friends. But an Internet search "how to play magic the gathering" or a YouTube search for the same thing should give you a lot of lot of guides to choose from. If you have a local game store going in and asking if they have any resources for new players hoping to learn how to play would probably be the best option, imo. Boardgames are social thing. Ma…

MTG Arena, their latest online effort, also has a "learn to play" mechanism built in.

Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#43

Post by eindiran »

seanwilson wrote: post #32

Is there a good link that concisely describes the rules of the game?

The rules of Magic are quite complex so you'll be hard pressed to find a resource that actually covers all of them that's able to be digested quickly. The reason there is so much to learn is that cards have rules on them, and there are a lot of cards: this leads to a lot of crazy interactions, which is what makes the game very interesting.

This should cover the (very) basics well: http://www.teachmtg.com/basics

If you want a video, something like this should cover the bare-bones basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZyXU1L3JXk

Once you have a sense of the basics, the best way to learn is to play and look up rulings whenever you get stuck.

Basic official rules are here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/magic-gameplay

Comprehensive rules for the current season are here: https://media.wizards.com/2019/downloads/MagicCompRules%2020...

Whenever there is a ruling specific to a card and its non-trivial interactions, you can look the card up in Gatherer, and there will be a rulings section that will tell you the relevant info. For example, if you were using the card 'Felidar Guardian' and didn't know what would happen in a particular case, you'd look up its Gatherer page: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multive...

Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#44

Post by Qworg »

busterarm wrote: post #36
uwuhn wrote: post #34

I first played Magic when I was around seven years old, when the Portal set came out. I've played on-and-off, never seriously/competitively. Before Arena came out, I had spent more time playing on Apprentice and then Cockatrice than I had with physical cards. Arena now takes up a LOT of my spare time. I'm happy with the microtransaction system. $5 can take you pretty far when it comes to building a competitive deck i…

I love playing Magic. I was a bit of a whale player as far as case openings goes. Obviously paper magic became untenable at some point...and I love playing Standard. Arena has been so fantastic for me. I spend a fraction of what I used to, have all that space back in my apartment and play way more than ever. There are some things that I miss about playing face to face with people, but also there's no way I'd ever pla…

Sadly, many combo decks that are perfectly viable run up against the clock in Arena. If only there was loop detection to allow for "do this X times", it'd be far better.

Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#45

Post by eropple »

blotter_paper wrote: post #26
hiccuphippo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another game you might want to take a look at is Dominion. You buy a single box with the cards for all the players (from 2 to 4 IIRC) so no need to buy extra decks.

I enjoyed Dominion, and generally appreciate games where you don't have to keep buying things to play competitively. I've never actually played it, but I was always intererested in Codex: http://sirlingames.com/codex It's modeled after real time strategy games (Warcraft 3 especially), and was designed by David Sirlin. Sirlin writes about game design, and I've really enjoyed his commentary on competitive systems. He d…

I was interested in Codex but at the same time I played Fantasy Strike for a hot minute and it kinda cooled me on Sirlin-as-designer rather than Sirlin-as-analyst. I'd be interested in whether anybody has played Codex and enjoyed it.

Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#46

Post by ImprovedSilence »

lifeformed wrote: post #12

The art in the old sets were so much more iconic and imaginative. They were so varied in styles and had so much personality. The newer ones have a much more consistent style, but ends up looking really generic and forgettable.

I totally agree. I also think the newer art looks like it was made to be wall sized, and really just looks muddy, dark, and obscures details when it’s the size of a card. Looking back at old art, it soooooo much clearer and more flavorful.

Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#47

Post by eropple »

dole wrote: post #31
vkou wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The base Dominion card set is allright, but does not have all that much variety. The various expansion packs are fairly pricy. But if you like the base game, you can probably snag someone's collection on the cheap, on Craigslist.

You really need at least one expansion (and make it Intrigue) before too long to keep the game interesting. IIRC the base game originally had the first 2 or 3 expansions but broke them out to cut the costs down (and for the expansion revenue later.) IMHO get them all up to and including Hinterlands at the least if you get into it. RIP isotropic

Intrigue is good but you have to have a consistent playerbase to start rolling that stuff into the game. But I find that the base game is pretty intuitive and somebody can play competitively even on their first play-through.

I'd bet the overwhelming majority of Dominion games are not just using the base set, but the "recommended first play" card selection.

Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#49

Post by the_af »

JorgeGT wrote: post #15

There's no mention in the article, but as a kid I really liked the flavor text at the bottom of some cards: witty, small fragments of an unknown fantasy lore.

Agreed! In particular Kaervek has become a favorite with my friends -- none of which has played Magic for more than a decade now -- with his iconic "If it is weak, either kill it or ignore it. Anything else honors it."

Re: My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art

#50

Post by cicero »

umvi wrote: post #4
wyldfire wrote: post #2

MtG is just a fantastic game. Somehow I think the detailed rules really appeals to those of us who simulate automata in our head. ;) > I had begun the interview with what I figured was an obvious, softball icebreaker: “Yes,” Garfield responded when asked if he was related to President James Garfield (1831-1881), “he was my great-great-grandfather.” Wow! > I think make-believe is a very important component of games; t…

Is there a way to have access to all cards for free? Kind of ruins the fun when you need to sink so much $$$ just to try out different decks. Another reason Hearthstone was so frustrating. All the legendary cards were locked behind astronomical paywalls.

Richard Garfield's new game, KeyForge [1], attempts to remedy this problem by using pre-made decks generated by an algorithm that makes every deck unique. You buy a deck for $10 and you are ready to play. Each deck is given a unique name that is printed on every card so you cannot alter the composition of the deck. Although some decks are better than others, they are all very playable, and I always have fun playing. I usually play a couple of sealed tournaments at my local game store each month where we all buy a $10 deck and play the tournament with whatever we got. It's a lot of fun whether I win or lose. When my deck collection started to grow, I gave away decks to get others started in the game. Although it's true that some people spend a lot of money in search of the really powerful deck, that is not necessary to enjoy the game, and I think it's much less expensive than Magic to play at a semi-competitive level.

1: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/keyforge/

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