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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

#61

Post by elif »

slothtrop wrote: post #56
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…

The rules appeal, but not the money-pit. I wouldn't say it's pay-to-win, but fuck.

If you play standard, it's definitely pay-to-win.

The average cost of the top 10 decks at any moment is over $200, as meta shifts and sets rotate, you're buying ~5 decks per year minimum.

If you want to practice, you have to buy digital copies of those decks too (either buying singles in mtgo or a ton of boosters on arena)

If you want to play at the competitive level, you have to travel to multiple cities for open/gp events since there is a lot of randomness based on draw and matchups.

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

#62

Post by wyldfire »

elif wrote: post #61
slothtrop wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rules appeal, but not the money-pit. I wouldn't say it's pay-to-win, but fuck.

If you play standard, it's definitely pay-to-win. The average cost of the top 10 decks at any moment is over $200, as meta shifts and sets rotate, you're buying ~5 decks per year minimum. If you want to practice, you have to buy digital copies of those decks too (either buying singles in mtgo or a ton of boosters on arena) If you want to play at the competitive level, you have to travel to multiple cities for open/gp…

> If you play standard, it's definitely pay-to-win.

Yes, but casual games with friends can be really enjoyable. Sealed events at the LGS are good too.

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

#63

Post by make3 »

slothtrop wrote: post #56
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…

The rules appeal, but not the money-pit. I wouldn't say it's pay-to-win, but fuck.

it's one of the most pay to win games there is. there is a top to each format, in that the max performance can't be surpassed by investing more, but that top is currently around 700$ for the most popular format, standard, and double that for modern. That's insane if you ask me.

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

#64

Post by elif »

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.

In college wed use the library printer and paper cutter.

Put the 'proxy' cards in a sleeve with a regular card behind it.

Takes time and effort, but if you play one night a week or so it ends up more fun because you never know what someone is going to bring.

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

#65

Post by make3 »

the part about rare cards not being stronger than common cards is really not true anymore sadly, with competitively payable planeswalkers like Oko, for example, often being 50$+ each, and pretty much every card in competitive decks except basic lands being rare or mythic rare

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

#66

Post by elif »

foota wrote: post #30
umvi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's an online version of MtG with pretty reasonably prices cards iirc, and you can get lots free. Interface is amazingly complicated though, since it has to model all of MtG.

There's 4 versions of magic online:

MtGO: old official version, you can buy and sell singles for similar costs to paper

Cockatrice: Old unofficial free version. leaves a lot of rule/effect enforcement up to players manually.

Duels: "new" official version, never implemented complete rulesets, abandoned by devs 2 years ago, leaving collectors who paid good money SOL

Arena: new official version, but with hearthstone model of only RNG card purchases, no singles or resales.

Personally, after putting close to 4 figures into MtGO, then hundreds into duels for nothing (on top of the fortune I've spent on paper), the price fatigue has ruined arena for me, and I don't give them any money.

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

#67

Post by falcrist »

wyldfire wrote: post #60
falcrist wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Play Commander (formerly EDH) with a deliberately casual group. There's a lot of variance in the games, variety in the cards, and weird interactions to work out. You can buy preconstructed commander decks for $35 (maybe a little more), and modify them with a bunch of obscure cards that cost no more than a few dollars a piece. Check out EDHREC for card ideas.

I heartily second EDH, it's great. My friends and I would often play a hybrid of EDH and 2HG (Two headed Dragon?), it was a real good time.

"Two-Headed Giant"

It's not even a hybrid really. It's just that 2HG is more of a format modifier than it's own format.

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

#68

Post by Agentlien »

cicero wrote: post #50
umvi wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 played a bit of KeyForge. It was fun and more unique than I had expected. However, I really missed the tactics and interactivity that come from being able to respond on your opponent's turn and the defending player assigning blockers.

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

#69

Post by friendlybus »

foota wrote: post #29
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…

I've begun to realize that the games I play for fun reflect the complexity of the work that I do. sigh

Is that not good?

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

#70

Post by Tyr42 »

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…

You should try it for a few hours it's pretty fun.

You can even do play by post, since you only make decisions on your turn. You have to trust the other person to shuffle, but it works

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