Poll: Magic: The Gathering

[Latinidiot]

It sounds like fn when I hear of it, but I don't want to invest that much money in a cardgame, and I don't know anyone that plays, so..

 

[babinro]

The game is amazingly fun and I've taught a bunch of people at my workplace how to play. Many people stay away from the game because of the 'nerdy' vibe...but nearly everyone who actually takes the time to learn really enjoys the experience.

The cost of the game is simply too much though. I encourage everyone I teach to not get into the hobby unless they are playing with someone else who is new to the game. To go from nothing to something competitive (be it in casual gaming or tournament) is far too expensive. New players can just each buy a different pre-con deck and slowly build from there if they choose to.

I've collected since Revised personally, so my brother and I have a long history with this hobby. I only wish we knew about it back in Alpha.

 

[commiedic]

It was fun for many years. Played it for a long time. So many rules and different types of cards made it almost impossible to know what you were going to be up against during tournaments. I then started getting bored of it. I stopped playing at Planeshift. It started to feel less fun to me after that point. My interests may have just grown out of it, but defiantly had some good times then.

As for making friends. I made some and made some enemys too. Some people thought that my decks were cheap. I don't know how they thought this... I used one of the most underpowered colors. Green! Some others copied my decks and I even had a couple stolen, but I have also made a couple of long time friends from it. lol

 

[Manji187]

Got into MTG last year October (around Scars of Mirrodin)...decided to "limit" myself to casual and EDH Commander.

B/G Nath of the Gilt-Leaf heavy discard (Sadistic Hypnotist, Grave Pact etc) FTW! Efficient...to the point of eliciting gang-ups.

MTG = very fun

 

[thylasos]

It was good fun for a while, but I just couldn't afford it.

 

[ShakyFiend]

Sank all my money from 9-14 yrs into Yu-Gi-Oh! and pokemon card games and haven't touched them since. As expensive-nerdy-collect games go I way prefer warhammer as the painting is awesome but I dont even have the money/time/friends for that any more

 

[MaxwellEdison]

I play it with the younger kids at camp since no one else will hang with them, it's actually a really fun time

 

[Togs]

It can be good fun but incredibly frustrating- the singles market is just plain nuts and this standard format thing really pisses me off- spend £100 on a deck only for it to become unplayable ouside casual matches with friends a year later.
Another thing that bugs me is FNM- ive gone to versions of it in 3 different cities and its always a bunch of normal guys out for a laugh and a small number of bad geek stereotypes lauding over everyone with their four Jaces and BO.

 

[Ghaleon640]

Nerds/geeks do as do they do. Sports fans do as they do.

Everyone needs a hobby. No reason to dismiss this as an option because it is 'nerdy'

I am a geek and I love the game. One day I will learn how to get my ninja deck to be useful even in a free-for-all match with 4 players.

 

[Ravenseeker]

I just started playing with a black and goblin deck I bought off of my friend and it's a lot of fun for me. I'm about to build my own deck once I get enough money and with enough card building sites and card shops around here it'll be easy.

 

[Ghaleon640]

A friend of mine got me into Magic a couple weeks back. he'd been bugging me about it for a while, but I had been resisting because I'm very much a collecting type of person and I just knew that if I started Magic, that's all I'd pretty much think about and sink far too much money into.....

turns out I was right, I've sunk about $100 into so far, and I'm planning to get one of the New Phyrexia fat packs (if there's any left) at the end of the week. But Magic is a fun game. I'm still very new at it so I know nothing of the lingo and still designing fairly simple decks (I like to revolve around a theme. Currently I have a green beast deck and a green wurm deck) and I tend to get totally roflstomped (you'd be surprised at how many times I end with a hand full of creatures and not enough land, or vice versa), but I have fun. I have made some personal rules, though. No bidding on eBay, in fact no buying rares and what have you at all. Totally luck of the draw for me, otherwise I'll be spending far, far too much money on this hobby.

I only hope that they release something to counter infect. So far I haven't heard of anything outside of a legendary creature of 2 that can actually remove infect tokens. Sucks when you get dealt 6 infect tokens in one turn.

Edit: Is there a site where all the various jingo that I see tossed around on the net is explained?

Edit edit: Writing about not having land reminded me of something. I was watching a game between my friend and my brother. My friend was running a black vampire deck at the time, but spent the game pulling mostly swamps. So he was taking hits, and unable to hit back.....until, with 13 swamps on the board, he pulled 2 corruptions in a row. Won the game in a single turn. If only I could be that lucky......

I have to say, there are a lot of cards online that aren't a horrible price. Tons of rares are only a dollar or so, and if you can get it free shipping, it isn't terrible. (Though the cards do add up fast...)

Better advice I have is this, check out a couple of comic/card shops, one place I have relativly near my house is great because they have boxes and boxes of old cards- you can pick up commons for 10 cents, uncommons for 25 cents, and rares are individually priced. Spend some time there and you can give yourself a lot of flexibility without relying on luck and keeping yourself on a nice budget.

Side Note: Green is awesome, but keep in mind the possibilities of combining it with other colors... a green black deck that specializes in big green creatures but has a couple of black spells used to bring them back from the grave is something I'm looking forward to trying.) And land can be just luck of the draw, but you can adjust your deck to try and avoid such problems. Try to shuffle properly, and experiment with having either more or less. Keeping a deck to about 60 cards rather than 200 helps a lot with the balancing issues as well. Sorry if all this sounds silly, but its the best I got. Good luck!

 

[klaynexas3]

i enjoy watching people get pissed at my phryxian rebirth and my indestructible carnifex demon. a flying 6/6 indestructible next to a 13/13. add that with my ajani and sorin, people just give up at that point lol

 

[Fursnake]

Played the physicl card game back in the day when it first hit the scene. Got my younger brother into it also and it was out thing. My bro actually got better at it then me. He would win the local tourneys sometimes even going up against the older guys who would spend thousands of dollars on the cards. I remember we once took a fond roadtrip down to Indiana from ole Michigan with some other Magic playing friends to buy cheap cigarettes and cheap boxes of Magic cards.

I fell out of the game many many years ago. Recently my bro and I got ack into Magic via Magic the Gathering Online, which is the official online version of the physical card game. All the other Magic games feel like poor attempts at mockups of the Magic, whereas MTGO is the real deal. And playing it makes me feel really old hehe, because there is so much that has changed and so many new elements to the game.

Now I can play it with out having all those cards all over tha place hehe.

Right now my favorite deck to play is the one where I almost kill myself to win...love it hehe.

 

[ace_of_something]

I've played it on and off for like 15 years. I've never bought a card myself. I always mooch a friend's deck because they always have like 30 complete decks.

Red/Black decks go!

 

[spartan231490]

It's a lot of fun, but I personally prefer yu-gi-oh. Magic cycles the cards they allow in standard tourneys by how old they are so yu-gi-oh is cheaper, and If you do it right it can be just as strategic, if not more so. My opinion is that you need more strategy to play magic than you need to play yu-gi-oh, but yu-gi-oh has more potential for strategy if you look for it. I dont' collect either of them anymore cuz they're too expensive, but I still have fun playing yu-gi-oh when i get the chance.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I got a nice amount of cards for free once after a casual tournament, and I construct a deck out of it every now and then. I can barely find anyone to play with though, which is a shame because it's pretty fun.

But you won't be seeing me really getting into the game, especially tournaments and all. The costs for a tournament-viable deck...*shudder*

 

[Johnnyallstar]

Until M10 happened.

Pardon my ignorance, but as someone who's only been playing for around five months, what exactly did M10 change that was so bad?

For me, it took a lot of the flavor away. I know many people whine about Mogg Fanatic being redefined, but let's be honest, it was a beloved broken card. Balance is broken now.

I remember when 1G meant a 2/2 vanilla bears. Now GG means a 3/2 Trample, no drawbacks. Jackal Pup was considered to be severely overpowered, but now it would be considered a moderately strong, but not broken card. But back in that day UU meant Counterspell, which was thought to be overpowered, so they scaled it back to 1UU as Cancel. Creatures ramped up, and spells didn't maintain the same growth.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the way the game has been shaped in the last few years, especially with M10 is that it is dominated by creatures, and guys like me who loved spell decks that only had creatures for blocking, or crazy abilities, and winning somehow other than "Swing for massive damage" aren't getting any love.

Which is funny, because old school spells tend to still trump newer school creatures.

People whine when I start throwing around splinters and exiles, then last word their counters.

You know what's funny? I wasn't thinking Last Word as being old. I'm Force of Will oldschool. I remember playing for ante oldschool. You may be a grizzled vet, but I'm the blind, toothless guy with a cane who still calls you sonny.

 

[esliang]

I saw a thread about Yu-Gi-Oh!, and now I gotta ask: what's everyone's opinion of Magic?
I'm not ashamed to say I play it, and neither are my friends. We're all in college and think it's quite the game. I personally think it has a very deep strategic potential, and I really like that. And since I've discovered proxies, it isn't even that expensive of a hobby anymore.
When I tell people I play MTG, I get one of three responses: what's that, you're a geek, or so do I! So, I thought it was about time to see what the wonderful people of the Escapist have to say about it. Poll time!

I'm a big fan of kitchen table play. Magic is a solid part of my saturday nights.

Also. How many proxies are you running? No one wants to play against a hobo deck.

Depends. My playsets of Jace and Tezzeret AoB are all proxies, and obviously my P9 are too. Otherwise I play mostly with what I have. What tends to happen is, if I pull a card a really like and would like one or two more of, I just proxy it. Maybe 25% of my deck right now is that way.

Honestly, though, really well made full-art proxies add some flavor to the game, in my opinion.

 

[Leemaster777]

I played it for awhile. It's cool, I guess, but I quit for two reasons:

1. Too damn expensive. When you've got to spend $20 on a SINGLE card that you need FOUR of to complete your deck, you're spending too much on this hobby.

2. All my old Magic friends are dicks. I had this group of guys that I played Magic with, but one day, they were CONVINCED I stole someone's extra cards. I thought they were kidding for a few weeks, until one of them told me with a straight face that they were serious, and that they didn't trust me. Fuck that.

That being said, I do have a few... mementos left over from my Magic days, namely a complete set of Unhinged cards (including Super Secret Tech), and my old Kaldra deck. Because dammit, I love Kaldra. So god damn satisfying to summon him, and watch people say "aw shit" in response:

 

[penguindude42]

NNNEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

All of you, nerds! Nerds, nerds, nerds!

-tom