Magic: The Gathering

[JMeganSnow]

Just stop playing. You look back on trading card games and the fact that you actually spent money on it in the same way you'd look at a giant tattoo of a swear word across your chest when you're 80.

At least card games aren't permanently affixed to your body. They're like all other hobbies--they serve as recreation and mental refreshment for more difficult tasks. Will you be upset that you spent money on fly fishing or kayaking?

I get really sick of people pretending that we should be ashamed of our geeky hobbies. Personally I think football is a great deal stupider and a huge waste of money. It's your money! Spend it on what you like.

 

[Vigormortis]

Just stop playing. You look back on trading card games and the fact that you actually spent money on it in the same way you'd look at a giant tattoo of a swear word across your chest when you're 80.

At least card games aren't permanently affixed to your body. They're like all other hobbies--they serve as recreation and mental refreshment for more difficult tasks. Will you be upset that you spent money on fly fishing or kayaking?

I get really sick of people pretending that we should be ashamed of our geeky hobbies. Personally I think football is a great deal stupider and a huge waste of money. It's your money! Spend it on what you like.

Exactly right. A hobby is nothing more than someone, doing something they love, for their own enjoyment and interests. Some people collect coins, and most others would say, "How stupid. Why would you collect coins when you can spend them?" Others, like Megan said, spend money buying sporting memorabilia and betting on events. I personally find all the spectacle and commercialization of so called "professional" sports to be appalling. Even more appalling are people that think it's normal to spend hundreds even thousands of dollars on such things and insult others who spend money on other such hobbies, like TCGs. However, if that is someone's hobby, then they have every right to waste their money on it. Just don't knock me and others for spending our money on something we enjoy.

I started playing in high school shortly after Dark Moon came out, which IIRC was the first expansion. I messed with it for a while in college, got out, got back in, and I still have two decks of cards that are all probably so old that they're illegal now.

I always had more fun playing interesting decks rather than powerful ones, so my enjoyment from playing with other people was limited.

Even though I started around Beta, I loved The Dark when it was released. Overall, it was a very weak set but I loved the flavor and themes within it. To this day I'm not sure why. Like you, I love to play quirky decks now and again. The Spike in me wants to make them somewhat competitive so they can at least win but the Timmy and Johnny in me just want to load them up with big, splashy spells and try to pull off weird, ridiculous combos.

 

[zen5887]

Just stop playing. You look back on trading card games and the fact that you actually spent money on it in the same way you'd look at a giant tattoo of a swear word across your chest when you're 80.

$4.50 every couple of weeks.. I think I can handle that

 

[Vigormortis]

Just stop playing. You look back on trading card games and the fact that you actually spent money on it in the same way you'd look at a giant tattoo of a swear word across your chest when you're 80.

$4.50 every couple of weeks.. I think I can handle that

Is that for one booster pack or two?

 

[Kuweekee]

I have a couple of decks, the one I mostly play with is a mono-red land destruction deck, especially fun in multiplayer games, since everyone gets pissed off, and I can't win (only 2 raging goblins in the deck) but i keep sacrificing my own lands to kill all other lands in play.

The decks that seem to be working best for me are my Poison counter deck in singleplayer (viridian longbow + marsh viper) and in multiplayer my Pestilence deck just rules bigtime, since no-one without regeneration creatures can withstand a couple of 5-6 damage from pestilence every turn.

 

[Vortigar]

Started at the tail end of the Dark.

Stopped at the beginning of the Urza's block.

Restarted again a couple of months back.

The game has definately changed, there was a load of chaos for a while but it seems to have set itself into focus again. And those old decks still work for the most part, may need to tweak a bit but some need nothing at all. The standard black Ritual, Hippy, Knight, Will-o, Unholy, Bad Moon deck still works a charm, you can enhance it a bit but as long as you can whack the opponent early you don't need to worry about the stuff that crawls out in the mid to late game.

Still have a lot of fun with it.

Vigormortis:
Dark, Fallen Empires and Homelands are some of my favorite sets, full of quirky cards, useless for the most part but there's some real heavy hitters in there. I still have a Thrull deck that I want to bring back up to par if possible, gotta see how I can get that stuff to work.

 

[Spacelord]

Used to play in junior high, then quit. Then played in a geek store for a few weeks, during Mirrodin / Darksteel. Then quit. Recently started again with a couple of buddies.

I'm glad to say that I finally got over what people think of me when they hear I play Magic. Chances are I have more fun in the weekends than they do, on average. Go to a club sometime and just look at the people there. I swear to god: they're just standing there with a blank look in their eyes and a $6 beer in their hands, listening to god awful music. I'll have my nerdy card game, thank you. But I digress...

tl;dr This is my arsenal!

- Affinity deck with skullclamps. I know, cheap at least I don't have any Arcbound Ravagers... as a matter of fact, I don't have a single rare in there and it's the most powerful deck I have. Shrapnel Blasts win the game.

- Red/Green. A classical deck with a lot of mana generation and Carbonize, Incinerate and Fireball for direct damage, with the added tactic of using those 'fetch' creatures from Nemesis (when comes into play, search your library for copies and put 'em in your hand etc). Helps thin out the deck, and you're always guaranteed a solid army. Added a few nice rares for flavor (Kamahl is always a nasty surprise), and there's this sorcery that gives a creature +3/+3 AND Double strike, which takes a nice chunk out of an opponent when used on a big trample beasty.

- Black/white rebel deck. The only reason I play this is because I still had some cards left from the Mercadian block, the most important being Lin Sivvi. Also I really like the art on those black/white nonbasic lands.

 

[Robyrt]

I have a very rigorous system to keep Magic costs down - I buy old theme decks, then spend $10 or less on singles to improve them. In this way, I have gradually acquired a theme deck built around every Ravnica color pair (Ravnica is the best block ever, in my humble opinion), and an Esper artifact deck from Shards of Alara, because artifacts were underrepresented in the existing 10 pairs.

 

[loudestmute]

Man, I feel old now...

I used to play Magic in high school, then when everyone switched over to Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, I left my cards in a shoebox pushed near the back of my closet.

I used to be pretty good at making some blue/green control decks, but anytime I look over card lists my thoughts turn to making red/black aggro.

I still enjoy playing around, but I really don't have the money to keep updating my box of cards every year or two.

 

[Vigormortis]

Started at the tail end of the Dark.

Stopped at the beginning of the Urza's block.

Restarted again a couple of months back.

The game has definately changed, there was a load of chaos for a while but it seems to have set itself into focus again. And those old decks still work for the most part, may need to tweak a bit but some need nothing at all. The standard black Ritual, Hippy, Knight, Will-o, Unholy, Bad Moon deck still works a charm, you can enhance it a bit but as long as you can whack the opponent early you don't need to worry about the stuff that crawls out in the mid to late game.

Still have a lot of fun with it.

Vigormortis:
Dark, Fallen Empires and Homelands are some of my favorite sets, full of quirky cards, useless for the most part but there's some real heavy hitters in there. I still have a Thrull deck that I want to bring back up to par if possible, gotta see how I can get that stuff to work.

Oh God, thrulls, lol. I remember trying to build a deck around those. Almost worked. Kind of like my Chimera themed deck. Worked pretty well as long as my opponent didn't do anything for a couple of turns. As for the thrulls, there's a few thrull and non-thrull themed cards in the newest sets that might actually make a deck like that work. You should share your current deck list.

 

[Volucer]

I used to play ages ago, but all the people I played with moved away. I'm now considering Magic: Online, anyone played that and got opinions on it?

 

[Vigormortis]

Magic Online is actually pretty fun. You can basically play anytime, anywhere, against pretty much anyone. They hold tournaments and host a dozen or so different game-modes/play types like Two-Headed Giant and Grand Melee as well as Draft. It doesn't have cards from every set, like Alpha and Beta, but it does have the vast majority. You do have to buy the digital cards, but these can come in the usual forms, boosters, pre-constructs, tournament packs, etc. You can also go to the trading store and trade cards with other players. If you'd prefer to have the tangible forms of the cards, Wizards can send you real copies of the cards in exchange for giving up the digital copies. However, and this is one of the reasons I stopped using it, no matter how many cards you get, you can only have them converted if you get every card from a particular set. It's been a while since I've played so I'm not sure if they've changed that policy, but I highly doubt it.

 

[indyfan]

I've been using a shaman deck from morning tide

its pre-built but I added alot of cards

Magic is such a great card game

 

[DYin01]

I have three decks at the moment. A white/blue healing deck, a white/blue permission deck (it needs some work) and a Goblin Deck, which is based on a theme deck.