Magic

Post by **Jonathan** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 10:46 pm

I hereby challenge everyone who reads this post to a game of Magic the Gathering using MTGPlay.

Results of play to be posted in this thread.

Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 12:31 am

http://www.mtgplay.com/

MTGPlay is the best free online MtG program I have found. It has the real artwork, all the cards, is open source, has a Windows client, is still actively developed and supported, and has pretty screenshots. Download it now.

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:32 am

Maybe next week when I get internet at home.

Oh, and DAMN they've been busy making new card sets. They're up to 8th edition and I stopped playing during the beginning of 4th edition.

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 4:17 am

So, what sets are allowed when building a deck?

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:08 pm

I might try this next week. but i can't play at work

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:15 pm

MTGplay is not Apprentice (for comparison, here is an Apprentice screenshot)

Hehe, I actually used apprentice for a little while, and used it to organize my various decks (mostly used excel for probability and distributions though). I might even have it buried somewhere in my backup directory...

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:25 pm

am i the only one that didnt play magic?

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 8:22 pm

Hehe, maybe. Ramble time!

Magic was fun and probably one of the biggest reasons I got interested in game mechanics (early high school). It was also quite profitable when I quit around 4th/5th Edition (took a break in between, made ~$100-$200 overall profit from selling cards).

FYI, I quit mainly because of the cycle/block scheme of releasing new expansions and removing old expansions from tournament play (read as constantly milking you for money without a choice). 8th edition, sheesh! It was annoying the many of my cards would get phased out and consequently delegated to Type 1 / 1.5 play (Zuran Orb + Land Tax + Armageddon, whee~)

I started around revised (3rd edition). Playing against people with Black Lotuses (was $500 then) and Moxes was not fun... (ie. almost impossible to compete in Type 1, difficult in Type 1.5) So I primarily designed and played Type 2 decks. Since I was a new player, I initially didn't suffer the pain of losing cards (yet...). For the record, I didn't play in "professional" tournaments, just a few in a game store I went to occasionally.

In retrospect, I had a great deal of respect for fairness, and became pretty much the undisputed rules laywer among my group of Magic players. This irrational behavior caused me to adhere to the constantly evolving Type 2 conventions.

Aside: In high school, no one was annoyed by the fact I knew/followed the rules. In fact, people kept on bugging me instead of reading the manual -_- (but the majority learned and DIDN'T ask repeat questions). It wasn't until college I was told knowing/following the rules was bad along with the term rules lawyer. I'm still a bit confused about that...

Another tidbit, removing interrupts from the game sucked (at least they kept instants).

Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 9:13 pm

Wait, they removed interrupts? How do you do a counterspell, then?

As for Joe's question about which set to use:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ju ... ces/banned

I propose playing Standard, or Type 2 decks. That means Eighth Edition, Onslaught, Legions, Scourge, Mirrodin, and Darksteel. There aren't any banned cards in those sets.

I suggest this because I know I'm sure not as hell going to go through 8 editions and countless expansions to come up with a Type 1 deck. Type 2 seems a little bit simpler because there are no banned or restricted cards, plus it caps the amount of stuff you have to download and install.

Like Vinny, I stopped playing because I didn't want to be WotC's money train. I figure virtual cards are a nice end run around the economic objections.

Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 9:18 pm

In my group, I was the "poor" player because I didn't steal cards, so I had way fewer cards than my friends. I also had probably the worst all time trading record. I swear, every single trade I made made me look like a chump. That's the other nice thing about virtual cards: I will have all of them! Mwahahahah.

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 9:40 pm

I was hoping to not have to spend a ton of time figuring out all the new additions to the game they made a la flanking, etc. I was thinking something more along the lines of Type 1 or 1.5 up to 4th or Ice Age or something. Or from Revised through 4th. At least we know these rules and cards, and have played with them at one point.

Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 10:07 pm

Well, you're boring. Half the fun will be playing with wacky shit they came up with like cycling and double-strike. But if you want to play that way, I will make a revised, fourth edition, Ice Age, Homelands, Fallen Empires, The Dark deck just to play you. Witness the awesome power of my Ice Cauldron!

See the card list here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=ma ... /cardlists

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 10:28 pm

I played Magic for a little while when it first came out. I quit as soon as the first expansion was released that made all my cards worthless.

I caught onto WoTC's money-making scheme pretty quickly and said screw it.

Also I wasn't very good at it, which helped my decision.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 10:54 pm

Dwindlehop wrote:Wait, they removed interrupts? How do you do a counterspell, then?

Easy, counterspells became instants. Essentially, everything was given the same LIFO priority. In the past, interrupts were ALWAYS faster than instants (ie. higher priority class). The only thing faster was another interrupt. Fun interrupts that come to mind are the counterspell, the elemental blasts, and powersink!

IIRC, mana tapping continued to broke the rule, and acted like an interrupt.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:00 pm

quantus wrote:I was hoping to not have to spend a ton of time figuring out all the new additions to the game they made a la flanking, etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong (too lazy to look it up), but flanking imposed a -X/-X on all blocking creatures, effectively diminishing the ability of lots of tiny creatures to block one. It was fun combined with a card that forced everything to block (my memory's hazy, I think that existed...)

The only severely broken "new" rule I remember were shadow creatures. I don't know what they were smoking there.

Oh, I also think banding was removed before I quit. Banding allowed the defender to assign damage to the blockers as he saw fit, instead of the attacker. This allowed X blockers to take no losses, or choose only one to suicide (trample complicated things). Cheer for the Benalish Zeros! er, I mean Heros

Aside1: Shadow creatures can only be blocked, and can only block other shadow creatures. Essentially, if you had shadow creatures, and your opponent didn't, you were unblockable. Oh, shadow creatures came in a new expansion shouting BUY ME -_-. (Yes, you could DD (direct damage) like a madman, millstone their deck, etc, but your chances of forming those in a sealed deck tournament were pretty nil)

Aside2: Benalish Hero was a 1/1 white soldier (I think that's the type) with banding that cost 1 white mana. Great for blocking / suiciding along with a high attack power creature to kill the attacker.

VLSmooth · Post by **VLSmooth** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:10 pm

FYI, another reason I quit had to do with removing Swords to Plowshares from Type 2, a 1 white mana instant that removed target creature from the game. Owner gains X life, where X is equal to the attack power of the creature.

That was a staple of many, if not all white magic decks (they also removed lightning bolt (1 red mana, deal 3 damage) at the same time... craziness). Yep, changes like this really pissed off a LOT of people.

Also, IIRC, cycling was a cost that needed to be paid on the next turn, or you lost the card. Kinda like taking a mana loan.

Whee, nostalgia~

quantus · Post by **quantus** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:23 pm

I think Mirage added something called phasing which basically means that your card exists one turn, "phases out" the next. It was like, here, have a card for half the time. That just seemed a bit annoying to have to deal with all the time. You could theoretically have a massive army one turn and have nothing the next.

Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:23 pm

Cycling- A card mechanic in the Onslaught block. When a card with cycling is in your hand, you may pay its cycling cost and discard it to draw a card.

Post by **Jonathan** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:26 pm

Get your Eighth Edition rule book, unless you want to be like Joe.

Peijen · Post by **Peijen** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:28 am

I never seriously play magic, mostly played with my cousin using their card hehe