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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)

#71

Post by sqeaky »

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.

I play EDH/commander. There a $50 budget deck can readily beat a $2000 deck. I have won and lost on both sides of that equation.

EDH started as a community driven format with no official support. The community decided that your deck must be exactly 100 cards with no duplicates except basic land. This slows the came down and forces more board interaction.

On top of that 1 of your hundred cards must be a Legendary creature. Everything in your deck can be of a color from that creature and you will always have access to that creature throughout the game. This constrains deck construction and makes it really hard to splash a color for one $50 that would be perfect. Always having access to commander is a comfort to new players and opens new strategies to veterans.

To further combat this I have a pool of 30 or decks that I build with my friends and we play mostly from this pool. No paying to win if we are paying together.

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

#72

Post by sqeaky »

Pinckney wrote: post #55
lelandbatey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think he meant the duel deck product, I think he just meant two decks to duel with.

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

#73

Post by sqeaky »

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…

Ex-Power Artifact, Ex-Academy, Ex-Oath-Combo, Ex-Enchantress and Active Legacy Splinter Twin combo player here.

I really don't see how actually interacting with your opponent is less "brainy" than comboing out. Building a combo deck to win turn 1 reliably is not as difficult as actually interacting with your opponent and forcing them into submission. To win with a good combo, just assemble the deck with dollars and learn to pilot it on its own in a vacuum and tada you can win all kinds of tournaments at the local game store. Its not hard, its just a formula.

If a format is balanced enough that there are no instant win combos available then players, regardless of wealth, actually need to deal with interaction. I think this is a good thing. I shouldn't just win by showing up because I can put any card I want in any deck. Currently this is the state of EDH for me.

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

#74

Post by sqeaky »

minimaxir wrote: post #9
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.

The fact that the rarity top-end is only "Mythic Rare" makes it more tame than most modern TCGs.

I think its a shame you were downvoted. I completely agree, many other TCGs were not so careful with promotional cards for example. All promos in magic are functional reprints of some other card.

Things like the DCI Balance and Force of will might be worth a thousand dollars but there are cheaper versions of those cards out there. They even reprinted force of will this year.

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

#75

Post by sqeaky »

ebbv wrote: post #16

I played MtG seriously in the late 90s and early 2000s and the idea that it's more sophisticated than it's ever been just isn't true. I have gone back and checked it out every few years since I stopped playing seriously and the game is a lot more focused on the board than it was back then. The right play is usually a lot more obvious and deck construction is also a lot simpler because the sets are designed with syner…

If you believe all that I would like to hand you one of my EDH decks and play a game with you.

Near Omaha often?

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

#76

Post by pmiller2 »

everyone wrote: post #68

I still have a tonne of magic cards from the 90's. I wonder how much I could sell them for..

Depending which cards and their condition, anywhere from "good luck selling that junk," to "go buy a modest new car" levels of money. Had I not sold everything I had in 2000 or so, I'd be on the latter end of that.

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

#77

Post by logicfiction »

sturmeh wrote: post #27
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.

The only real issue is when they print tournament staples at mythic rare. They've avoided this for the most part. (Except with reprints where they do not wish to devalue the card and affect the secondary market.)

I'm not sold that they've avoided this for the most part. Many of the most important tournament cards are mythic rares. BG delirium is one of the top two competitive standard decks currently and 25% of the deck is mythic rares. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-b-g-delirium-...

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

#78

Post by touchofevil »

sqeaky wrote: post #73
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…

Ex-Power Artifact, Ex-Academy, Ex-Oath-Combo, Ex-Enchantress and Active Legacy Splinter Twin combo player here. I really don't see how actually interacting with your opponent is less "brainy" than comboing out. Building a combo deck to win turn 1 reliably is not as difficult as actually interacting with your opponent and forcing them into submission. To win with a good combo, just assemble the deck with dollars and l…

I do somewhat agree with you from a playing standpoint. I often gravitated to combo or control because I didn't want to deal with doing the math on attacking / blocking as it could lead to some awfully complicated interactions. But there were definitely difficult decisions to be made when playing combo or control, since you'd often be facing aggressive decks that put you on a clock. But mainly, I found the deck building and meta game more interesting when combo, control, and creature based decks were all available to players. Personally, I just always thought it was really interesting when a deck would try to do something like generate infinite (or near-infinite) mana in order to "go off". That is an aspect of Magic that I found unique, since most games are so tightly controlled that there isn't possibility of finding an interaction that is "broken", as we used to call it, and can be exploited to create scenarios that are outside of what the game designers possibly intended.

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

#79

Post by celdon25 »

edem wrote: post #67
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…

That's why a lot of players are playing on Vanilka WoW servers. After the game became mainstream they had to dumb it down to fit a wider audience.

WoW as a whole may feel dumbed down, but the skill cap at the highest levels of play has certainly increased with the last expansion. Easy to learn, hard to master seems to be the paradigm with them.

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

#80

Post by neutronicus »

lukifer wrote: post #69
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…

If you're looking for another way to scratch that itch, look into Netrunner. The game and the culture are both fun and creative, and it's possible to build competitive decks for about a hundred bucks (as an LCG, all cards come as full playsets, so you know exactly what you're getting). It's more fun in person, but there's also a free community-made site where you can play online, and most players are happy to teach:…

Seconding Netrunner.

Fun fact, jinteki.net is written in Clojurescript.

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