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22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

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Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#51

Post by JPKab »

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #15

"The brainiest it's ever been" makes it sound like it's ramping up the intellect. I guess they're saying that because of the end of the "dumbed-down" core sets, but I doubt it's the case for the game as a whole. I tried getting back into Magic after an 8-year hiatus, and so many of the rules had been changed and simplified that many of the subtleties I enjoyed from before were no longer options. Felt like I was payin…

I remember playing the game in the late 90s, and trying again in the early 2000's.

The strategy and game-play dynamics were awesome. Not so awesome: the fact that the amount of money a player spends acquiring rarer cards and assembling a deck dictates their success. It's a pay-to-win game and I fucking hate games like that. Not unlike paintball, he who spends the most on gear wins.

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#52

Post by brianwawok »

JPKab wrote: post #51
GarrisonPrime wrote: post #15

"The brainiest it's ever been" makes it sound like it's ramping up the intellect. I guess they're saying that because of the end of the "dumbed-down" core sets, but I doubt it's the case for the game as a whole. I tried getting back into Magic after an 8-year hiatus, and so many of the rules had been changed and simplified that many of the subtleties I enjoyed from before were no longer options. Felt like I was payin…

I remember playing the game in the late 90s, and trying again in the early 2000's. The strategy and game-play dynamics were awesome. Not so awesome: the fact that the amount of money a player spends acquiring rarer cards and assembling a deck dictates their success. It's a pay-to-win game and I fucking hate games like that. Not unlike paintball, he who spends the most on gear wins.

You can buy the vest type2 deck for maybe $400 a year. If you want a level playing field, you can have it... Not free but neither are most addictions.

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#53

Post by empthought »

mrob wrote: post #44
nickik wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy. You can spend 50-100$ on a more or less competitive Modern or Standard Deck and have fun with it for years.

You can see actual competitive decks here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#paper You occasionally get Standard decks in your price range making top 8, but almost never in Modern. It's really stretching it to call the budget Modern decks "competitive".

The bar being set was to "have fun with it," not "to finish top 8 in sanctioned tournaments..."

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#54

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

touchofevil wrote: post #29

This is nowhere near the brainiest Magic has ever been. I've been playing almost since the beginning and it's been disappointing to see how the game has been simplified. It seems like all competitive standard decks now are creature decks, which is a shame because control and combo decks used to be a huge part of the meta game and required a lot of skill to pilot. I think Wizards deliberately eliminated combo and cont…

I've been playing since Ice Age, and my first competitive deck was Enchantress combo, so I totally feel you regarding mourning the relative power decrease of combo (and hard control) as archetypes. But you do spell out the exact reasoning for this, and I'm inclined to agree with Wizard's decision making here. I play mostly Modern and Legacy nowadays, in part because I prefer the older, more complex interaction heavy style of Magic, but even as an old hand I can appreciate how frustrating it is to lose to a hard control lock or a combo with which you have no way to interact. By allowing players to choose that play style, the game designers are basically saying, it's okay if there are (possibly a lot of) games of Magic in which one party has zero fun. Which is fine for some players, and you can still get that experience by playing older formats, but you have to agree that this is an unsaleable philosophy for a modern, mass-market game produced by a public company.

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#55

Post by Pinckney »

lelandbatey wrote: post #39
sturmeh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost and effort of printing duel decks is never going to be less than just buying the product.

Eh, that's only true if you are cash rich and time poor. A booster box with 36 booster packs costs ~$100. At 15 cards per pack, that's 540 cards per box. The latest set has 249 cards, so a box will probably get you close to 2 of each card. But to be guaranteed to have all the cards you want, you may need to buy a second booster box and do some trading/purchasing of individual cards. Total cost is at minimum ~5¢ per c…

Parent was referring to duel decks, which are a specific product. I agree with them: proxying a $10 deck is generally a waste of your time.

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#56

Post by brianwawok »

zeroer wrote: post #37
dbg31415 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a reasonable price to spend? You would probably spend you $15 to go see a two hour movie... I bet you can get away with spending under $7.50 per hour on M:tG. But it is a very expensive game if you buy all the cards and only play it once. I still have cards from the 90s, I don't think I've bought anything in 20 years. Still fun game to play on board game night with friends.

> You would probably spend you $15 to go see a two hour movie I wouldn't. > spending under $7.50 per hour That's absurdly expensive.

Is it?

Flying a plane is $500 an hour.

Golfing a good course is $100 an hour.

Waterskiing can be $50 an hour.

Skiing is $20?? An hour.

Recreation is serious stuff in the US.

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#57

Post by brianwawok »

germinalphrase wrote: post #35

As a complete aside to this conversation, is there an easy way to unload Magic: The Gathering collections without dumping them on EBay as a single lot (or trying to individually price/sell cards)? They've been sitting on a shelf for a few too many years.

Hire someone to individually sell for 25% cut.

Otherwise you will sell in bulk and maybe get 20% of the price. Any magic store will buy it all.

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#58

Post by Pinckney »

blatant wrote: post #42
touchofevil wrote: post #29

This is nowhere near the brainiest Magic has ever been. I've been playing almost since the beginning and it's been disappointing to see how the game has been simplified. It seems like all competitive standard decks now are creature decks, which is a shame because control and combo decks used to be a huge part of the meta game and required a lot of skill to pilot. I think Wizards deliberately eliminated combo and cont…

Are there any other games that are "Brainier" than Magic?

Netrunner is very interactive.

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#59

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

hyperhopper wrote: post #18
moultano wrote: post #3

Does anyone else feel revulsion at the notion of a "mythic rare?" Magic feels like a cross between a brilliant game and a video poker machine.

It was pawned off on the community extremely well, most people were actually "glad" about it being introduced, and its purpose was hidden at the start. Originally, they were meant for cards that were too strange to come up often in limited play, so this slot was just to get the weird effects to show up less in drafts. However, over time, it turned into every single card that would be a great high priced single turns…

> However, over time, it turned into every single card that would be a great high priced single turns into a mythic rare.

That's just a blatant exaggeration. They do a pretty good job of ensuring that not all the mythics are chase/staple cards in most sets. And there are still plenty of weird/garbage cards in the mythic slot that you definitely don't want in limited.

That said I agree that it was mostly a financial decision, but I can't really fault Wizards for making it. Other successful card games have had more than three rarity tiers for years - Magic just gets additional pushback because it's so old that a segment of the player population has unrealistic/unfair expectations of stability, as if their sentimental attachment to the way things are should outweigh Wizards/Hasbro's financial imperatives.

Re: 22 years in, Magic: The Gathering is the brainiest it’s ever been (2015)

#60

Post by klodolph »

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #15

"The brainiest it's ever been" makes it sound like it's ramping up the intellect. I guess they're saying that because of the end of the "dumbed-down" core sets, but I doubt it's the case for the game as a whole. I tried getting back into Magic after an 8-year hiatus, and so many of the rules had been changed and simplified that many of the subtleties I enjoyed from before were no longer options. Felt like I was payin…

I disagree. I've played MtG three times in my life: back in 1997, in 2004, and in 2016. I'm currently in a sealed league at work, and we're finding that Kaladesh is pretty rich with organic complexity. In my experience, it requires a lot more mental effort than I remember using a decade ago, and the people I'm playing with have expressed similar sentiments.

The set seems to be particularly sensitive to issues like timing, the order you play cards in, and the little choices you make. The cards don't have obvious drawbacks like Juzam Djinn or Jackal Pups, but they have lots of tradeoffs with the other cards in your deck. Choices like "what do I spend my energy on?" or "how should I fabricate?" or "do I hold on to the Cataclysmic Gearhulk to try and get more card advantage?" So many cards in the set force you to make little choices that add up to quite a bit of mental work.

That said, I'm only playing a sealed league so I know nothing about the state of the game in other formats.

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