Your Worst Archenemy
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
I've wanted to get into this game for a while now, and there are a couple hobby stores in town that host games and things like that. Just a question though. How accessible is this new rule set?
I started playing 13 years ago and haven't had reason to quit...but I could use more people to play with.
Sigh. I'm not good at making new friends, I guess.
Sigh. I'm not good at making new friends, I guess.
"a testament to the excellent design of Magic, and how Wizards is not afraid of innovation"
While that is mostly true, the design of Magic has gotten a lot more corporate over the past few years. While the immediate effect is that they have started to cater towards building sets that all players will enjoy, there are lots of subtly evil nasty things they are doing to push product, like the printing of the aforementioned 'too pwoerful for their mana cots, but not quite enough to be broken and bannable', as well as the addition of a new rarity that is rarer than the regular Rare.
Archenemy is actually a page stolen from the WoW TCG, I think it was called Raid Mode or something, with a 1 vs all format.
Not to discourage anyone, though -- Magic is still an exemplar game in terms of consistent balance and new design.
While that is mostly true, the design of Magic has gotten a lot more corporate over the past few years. While the immediate effect is that they have started to cater towards building sets that all players will enjoy, there are lots of subtly evil nasty things they are doing to push product, like the printing of the aforementioned 'too pwoerful for their mana cots, but not quite enough to be broken and bannable', as well as the addition of a new rarity that is rarer than the regular Rare.
Archenemy is actually a page stolen from the WoW TCG, I think it was called Raid Mode or something, with a 1 vs all format.
Not to discourage anyone, though -- Magic is still an exemplar game in terms of consistent balance and new design.
Very, it's like chess easy to learn hard to master. You can learn to play in 5 minutes, it'll take years to get really good.SomeGuyNamedKy said:
EDIT: I forgot to mention that stack, that's a very confusing place when you first learn about it. I'd explain it but you kinda need to know the rules before hand.
Cool, something for me to look forward to then. I've always loved trading card games, but for some odd reason, I've never really looked into Magic. I think I'll give it a shot as soon as I get some money in.fanklok said:
Amnestic said:
Was coming here to say just that. It even triggered a short series of Penny Arcade strips, which ended up getting Gabriel (the character and his real-life counterpart, Mike Krahulik) into D&D and related tabletop gaming.JusticarPhaeton said:
I feel that completely summarises the synthesis of traditional tabletop Role-Playing Game and the more immediate, less characterful Trading Card Game. It not only acts as a lure, creating a middle ground for experience TCG players to cross, but blends the two formats in an ideal way and creates a new form of gameplay. I'm glad Wizards of the Coast have made this move; hopefully we'll see more new and interesting games emerge from this format yet. Be it Raid or Archenemy, I approve!
Wait. Haven't you ever played a 1v1v1v1? You definitely don't have to split off in that game. In fact having a nice free for all with 2 or 3 friends is great, alliances are struck and betrayed. It adds a whole new dynamic to the game!
As mentioned earlier Archenemy isn't the only way to play multiplayer magic. FFA's and Two headed giant are some pretty exciting gametypes that you can play without the archenemy scheme cards. (although I'm pretty sure this was mostly just a plug for the new product so you could nab more cards from that PR dude over at WotC)
And yes it is Magic 2011 coming out on thursday as well as I believe you were speaking about the Alara Block and not the exalted one.
Lastly I'm sorry. I recently quit magic after playing for 2 years.
3 nights ago I caught myself deckbuilding till 4 in the morning.
the next day I dropped $50 at a prerelease.
It never ends. never.
And yes it is Magic 2011 coming out on thursday as well as I believe you were speaking about the Alara Block and not the exalted one.
Lastly I'm sorry. I recently quit magic after playing for 2 years.
3 nights ago I caught myself deckbuilding till 4 in the morning.
the next day I dropped $50 at a prerelease.
It never ends. never.
I don't know about anyone else, but when it comes to spending money, it's very much examined as a cost/benefit exercise. How far does my money go to keep me entertained? I can buy a new-ish computer game for £25 or so, and I tend only to buy ones that I know I can pick up and play again some way down the road. My purchase of X-COM: Terror From the Deep has, in that regard, given me an awful lot of benefit for the princely sum of £4.
I played M:tG for about three years. This was (more or less) the three years I was at University, when I didn't really understand money. Income and expenditure was managed on a 'well, I have all my savings up 'til now, and I'm not spending vast quantities on booze'. I was also receiving a student loan (where 'loan' means, effectively, 'free money').
To start with, I played with other people's decks, but you can't have pride in a deck that someone else made. I went onto a free online version of the game, and played around with what kinds of decks I might enjoy playing, and then took them offline by buying a mass of deck protectors and writing on a ridiculous number of small pieces of card all the rules. But again, it wasn't the same as exactly owning that deck. Not to mention the fact that I was having a hell of a time trying to make decks with essentially every card ever - the game was too big to really get my head around understand available strategies.
Then Ravnica block came out. I bought into loads of draft tournaments, bought boxes to run my own draft tournaments, bought boxes, bought cards. It was awesome, throughout the entire run, the balance of the different decks you could build, the versatility of the cards, the whole design was fantastic, and once the final expansion came out you could draft with some from each and MAN it was fun.
I'm going to say that I probably spent about £300-£400 on Magic that year.
Then came Time Spiral. Suddenly, it wasn't so hot to play with Ravnica. When Time Spiral was done, we had Lorwyn. I liked Lorwyn even less. The Lorwyn cards were just better, mana-cost wise, than all those Ravnica ones. As I said before, I like to spend money as an investment into the future. TFTD is still picked up and played through. Now I couldn't play with Ravnica any more - who would I play? Losing all the time's no fun.
This doesn't even cover the aspect of the game which is so competitive, that there are always going to be a couple of people who find the tournament winning decks and just buy those cards, skipping the 'do it yourself' part of deck building. What chance have you of beating their decks, without spending a corresponding fortune on more cards?
WotC announced they'd be increasing the number of sets released each year. That'd mean going through cards faster. I'd stopped playing by the point the cards had increased in price by a whopping 50% - a box of boosters for £85?! The game makes it mandatory to keep buying more cards! I'd already seen that all the cards I had particular fun with would never last, and so I lost interest.
Just before I do the short-form conclusion: as another example other than X-Com, I'll also add in a couple of other games for comparison. Twilight Imperium, 3rd edition: I bought this for £60, and the expansion for a further £35. This has given me many, many, *many* hours of enjoyment, with plenty of people, and bought around the same time. Another is Dominion: a card game, deck-building based, only it keeps everyone on an exactly level footing when it comes to building their decks. Only £35 for the main box, and a further £35 for the second one.
TL;DR version:
I used to play Magic. I stopped because it's ridiculously expensive. You have to keep buying more cards to stay competitive, and the number of cards released means a constant expenditure of a small fortune. Old cards do not age well. In the end, you're only buying useless bits of card. There are better, more cost-effective alternatives out there.
I played M:tG for about three years. This was (more or less) the three years I was at University, when I didn't really understand money. Income and expenditure was managed on a 'well, I have all my savings up 'til now, and I'm not spending vast quantities on booze'. I was also receiving a student loan (where 'loan' means, effectively, 'free money').
To start with, I played with other people's decks, but you can't have pride in a deck that someone else made. I went onto a free online version of the game, and played around with what kinds of decks I might enjoy playing, and then took them offline by buying a mass of deck protectors and writing on a ridiculous number of small pieces of card all the rules. But again, it wasn't the same as exactly owning that deck. Not to mention the fact that I was having a hell of a time trying to make decks with essentially every card ever - the game was too big to really get my head around understand available strategies.
Then Ravnica block came out. I bought into loads of draft tournaments, bought boxes to run my own draft tournaments, bought boxes, bought cards. It was awesome, throughout the entire run, the balance of the different decks you could build, the versatility of the cards, the whole design was fantastic, and once the final expansion came out you could draft with some from each and MAN it was fun.
I'm going to say that I probably spent about £300-£400 on Magic that year.
Then came Time Spiral. Suddenly, it wasn't so hot to play with Ravnica. When Time Spiral was done, we had Lorwyn. I liked Lorwyn even less. The Lorwyn cards were just better, mana-cost wise, than all those Ravnica ones. As I said before, I like to spend money as an investment into the future. TFTD is still picked up and played through. Now I couldn't play with Ravnica any more - who would I play? Losing all the time's no fun.
This doesn't even cover the aspect of the game which is so competitive, that there are always going to be a couple of people who find the tournament winning decks and just buy those cards, skipping the 'do it yourself' part of deck building. What chance have you of beating their decks, without spending a corresponding fortune on more cards?
WotC announced they'd be increasing the number of sets released each year. That'd mean going through cards faster. I'd stopped playing by the point the cards had increased in price by a whopping 50% - a box of boosters for £85?! The game makes it mandatory to keep buying more cards! I'd already seen that all the cards I had particular fun with would never last, and so I lost interest.
Just before I do the short-form conclusion: as another example other than X-Com, I'll also add in a couple of other games for comparison. Twilight Imperium, 3rd edition: I bought this for £60, and the expansion for a further £35. This has given me many, many, *many* hours of enjoyment, with plenty of people, and bought around the same time. Another is Dominion: a card game, deck-building based, only it keeps everyone on an exactly level footing when it comes to building their decks. Only £35 for the main box, and a further £35 for the second one.
TL;DR version:
I used to play Magic. I stopped because it's ridiculously expensive. You have to keep buying more cards to stay competitive, and the number of cards released means a constant expenditure of a small fortune. Old cards do not age well. In the end, you're only buying useless bits of card. There are better, more cost-effective alternatives out there.
Whoooo! Great to see someone else who enjoys Terror From The Deep and Magic as well.FavouredEnemy said:
[small](Offtopic: I just spent last weekend watching the Lets Play TftD [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/TFTD/] thread on SomethingAwful... So cool to see all your childhood memories of invincible lobstermen come to life
)[/small]Ontopic: I just purchased one of the Archenemy decks (the Doomsday Machine) to play with my friends who are new to Magic. I handed them a couple of my older decks, so that I could give them hints on their play (as I still knew the decks pretty well).
Still, playing with the preconstructed Doomsday deck felt a little underpowered, mainly because I couldn't see a real strategy behind it's composition... Then again, it may have had something to do with getting slaughtered by my own Sliver and 5C Grozoth decks.
If my friends take the Magic bait... I'm sure I'll be spending a lot of the coming months with looking through new cards for deck ideas.
I can hardly wait.
The financial aspect of Magic really depends on how much your playgroup wants to invest in it. With my previous group we usually bought one booster box with the four of us. We used it for one evening of drafting, and then split up the cards evenly, with lots of trading afterwards. After that I usually bought specific cards from webshops to complete the deck ideas I got from the new cards.
God I hate and love that game. I was totally hooked on it like forever and then I realised how addicted I was (after several years and -a lot- of cash) and went instant cold turkey by selling all my cards at once (except for a single squirrel token).
Each year afterwards I have these regular periods during the year when the addiction makes itself known again. I can almost synchronize my clock by them. A couple of weeks ago I finally fell back in and registered an account at Magic Online. I'm still managing to keep it in check (maybe it's because the electronic version isn't as "sexy" - with all the paper cards and such) but whenever I get that craving I can fire it up and get it out of my system.
Still, firing it up to get it out of my system has proven to be quite dangerous. I easily lose track of time whenever I do that and suddenly realise it's 4AM and I have to go to work in ~3-4 hours.
Still, my favorite format right now is probably "Planeswalker". Yea, I know it's silly and such, but I like that it's so restricted. It allows you to pretty cheaply get all the cards you need to make a quite competetive deck. But oh man..when that craving for an 8 hour draft comes along - or when you just can't wait to attempt to streamline your deck to minimize your chance of getting no mana... God damnit that game is well designed, I hate/love it to hell/heaven and back!
Each year afterwards I have these regular periods during the year when the addiction makes itself known again. I can almost synchronize my clock by them. A couple of weeks ago I finally fell back in and registered an account at Magic Online. I'm still managing to keep it in check (maybe it's because the electronic version isn't as "sexy" - with all the paper cards and such) but whenever I get that craving I can fire it up and get it out of my system.
Still, firing it up to get it out of my system has proven to be quite dangerous. I easily lose track of time whenever I do that and suddenly realise it's 4AM and I have to go to work in ~3-4 hours.
Still, my favorite format right now is probably "Planeswalker". Yea, I know it's silly and such, but I like that it's so restricted. It allows you to pretty cheaply get all the cards you need to make a quite competetive deck. But oh man..when that craving for an 8 hour draft comes along - or when you just can't wait to attempt to streamline your deck to minimize your chance of getting no mana... God damnit that game is well designed, I hate/love it to hell/heaven and back!
Yeah, Magic was a lot of fun. I played it for a few years around the same time you started. The big problem with it, and the only real reason I stopped playing, is that WotC releases new card sets way too often. I just didn't have the money to keep up. If they had released one new card set per year instead of four, I probably would have kept playing Magic for several more years at least. But with the kind of budget I had back then, I couldn't get half the good cards in an expansion before the next one was released. It was simply too much. Alas.
These days I have the money to get back into it, but no longer the time... so I have to be content with playing Duels of the Planeswalkers on my 360 from time to time and that's all there is left of MtG in my life. (That and a few hundred cards in a box somewhere.) Ah well.
These days I have the money to get back into it, but no longer the time... so I have to be content with playing Duels of the Planeswalkers on my 360 from time to time and that's all there is left of MtG in my life. (That and a few hundred cards in a box somewhere.) Ah well.
Archenemy certainly sounds cool but in terms of a great pitched battle I'm still a fan of EDH, building a 100 card singleton deck out of a wide range of some of the best cards ever (obviously some of the original BROKEN cards are still banned). Then when you bring a general to hold the whole thing together and provide focus then go into battle against 4, 5, 10 other EDH Decks and battle it out. THAT was a load of fun.
I've tried playing a game of archenemy. My friend was the archenemy with the artifact deck mentioned in the article, while I controlled an Eldrazi deck, a Discard deck, and a Sliver deck simultaneously. He won, but I am certain, if I hadn't just got crap hands on all three decks I could have stood a chance. In addition he had this stupidly overpowered artifact that made it so that I couldn't do damage to him at all.
Oh, and the match lasted for something like five hours. Keeping track of everything was exhausting.
I was of the impression that you already could play magic with more than two people though.
Oh, and the match lasted for something like five hours. Keeping track of everything was exhausting.
I was of the impression that you already could play magic with more than two people though.
Love TCG's in general, Ive tried quite a few over the years. While Duel Masters may be my favorite, Magic is by and far the most complicated, most rewarding of them to play. Just bought Duel of The Planeswalkers actually, and love that my favorite deck is included
(The Black Discard and Destroy deck)
(The Black Discard and Destroy deck)