i personally have several thousands of cards and play on a regular basis this hobby has potential to be cheap or expensive. a friend of mine has one deck and will only play that and it suits him just fine. i on the other hand have anywhere between ten and twenty decks that see regular rotation.
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Explain Magic: The Gathering
- Thread starter DreadPirateMurphy
- Start date
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Imperialus
Explorer
I made money too... Of course this was because I lived in Argentina and there was only one store in the city that sold magic cards. It happened to be a block away from my house so I price gouged. By the time I stopped playing in 97 or so I had a pretty conciderable deck... It was a blue black vampire deck lots of Senger Vampires, the Baron Senger, clones, dopplegangers ect. Fun times.
ThirdWizard
First Post
Zappo said:
$3.15 'round these parts.
People covered the basics, but Magic is one of those (relatively) easy to learn difficult to master type deals. To be a successful player, people memorize at least the current sets (right now that's around 1000 cards or so) and know how the different cards interact with each other, which is often fairly complex.
If anyone knows programming, it operates on a FILO (First In Last Out - stack) system, which means that if I cast a spell, and then you respond with another one, the last spell cast occurs first. This means when your opponent does something, you can do something to change play, then his spell might change how it works. Then he can do something in response changing it back so that when his spell resolves, it does what he intended in the first place. It can get very complicated.
The different colors represent different things.
Black - discard, suffering a disadvantage to gain an advantage, creatures with a price
Blue - Card draw, changing play, counter spelling, weak creatures, general control
Green - Big creatures, anti-artifact, quick land (for mana)
White - Lots of small creatures, flying
Red - Direct damage, quick creatures, land destruction, chaos
Colorless (artifacts) - all of the above, but more expensive
That's general, of course. There's more to it than that, but you build your deck around some win condition, some purpose. Like if I wanted to build a deck around keeping the other player from playing their own cards then decking them (making them draw their entire deck), I would go Black/Blue. Or if I wanted lots of little creatures with burn to destroy blockers, I might go White/Red. Depending on the block (the currently legal cards) these ideas might be better or worse.
It's a lot of fun, really. If you're good, you can play in tournaments and gain money. Tournaments are usually at card shops around the world on Fridays. And, when I say tournaments, I'm not talking about the big regional, national, and worldwide tournaments. I'm talking about 10 or so guys meeting at a cardshop with a $30 prize for whoever comes in first, $20 for second, and $10 for third. If you're good, you can just use that to fuel the hobby and not spend a dime of your own (except initial investment).
ARandomGod
First Post
It's pretty expensive... but on the other hand, you're asking in this forum, so I'll tell you that 3.X was based largely on the card game. So you could look at it as a two-player 3.X game.
You can play without continuously buying cards, of course. And it's a lot less expensive than smoking even if you do keep buying cards (depending on how many packs a week/day you go through, of course). Plus at the end you'll still have the cards. While admittedly with smoking you could keep the butts and it can be argued that you still keep at least some of the lung damage, those comaparisons aren't really the same.
"So, how many cards are there in a deck? Does it vary?"
There is usually a minimum to a deck, standard games have a min of 60. Generally you won't see decks bigger than the min, as you want the best chance of drawing the cards you really, really want to finish the opponent off as soon as possible. It does vary some. There's a style with a min of 40... and, of course, there is no maximum. There you're only limited by the fact that the more cards you have the less likely you are to get the card or the card combo that you want/need. A newbie mistake is to have a large deck. Note that there is also generally a limitation on the number of copies of a single card you can have.
"What is the advantage of limiting the number of colors in your deck?"
Basic land cards only produce a single color of mana. A spell is "colored" by the mana required to use it, so the fewer colors you have, the less chance there is of NOT having the appropriate color of mana in the amount needed.
"How many sets have there been, and how many cards in each set, ..."
Go to the WotC site and look up the decks in the area devoted to that game. They've got a list of every card ever made.
"and how much do they cost?" Goto a game store and look at their prices, they do vary some. A game store that sells magic cards is likely to have a book with the listed prices of every card ever made, for pricing and buying/selling older cards.
"What the heck is a Black Lotus?"
It's "The Most Expensive Spell". Meaning, I think, that it costs you the most money to buy that card. I dunno, there might be a more expensive one out there now... but it would be a very powerful addition to many decks, and it's out of print, and it was from an early edition whith a more limited number of prints... so it's probably still the most expensive card. For what it does, that's already been answered above.
It can be really fun. Deck build is indeed very important, moreso important than the individual components (although add good components with a good build for the best, of course). And, as has been stated, you can actually make money playing if you try hard and are good at it. I did for a while.
You can play without continuously buying cards, of course. And it's a lot less expensive than smoking even if you do keep buying cards (depending on how many packs a week/day you go through, of course). Plus at the end you'll still have the cards. While admittedly with smoking you could keep the butts and it can be argued that you still keep at least some of the lung damage, those comaparisons aren't really the same.
"So, how many cards are there in a deck? Does it vary?"
There is usually a minimum to a deck, standard games have a min of 60. Generally you won't see decks bigger than the min, as you want the best chance of drawing the cards you really, really want to finish the opponent off as soon as possible. It does vary some. There's a style with a min of 40... and, of course, there is no maximum. There you're only limited by the fact that the more cards you have the less likely you are to get the card or the card combo that you want/need. A newbie mistake is to have a large deck. Note that there is also generally a limitation on the number of copies of a single card you can have.
"What is the advantage of limiting the number of colors in your deck?"
Basic land cards only produce a single color of mana. A spell is "colored" by the mana required to use it, so the fewer colors you have, the less chance there is of NOT having the appropriate color of mana in the amount needed.
"How many sets have there been, and how many cards in each set, ..."
Go to the WotC site and look up the decks in the area devoted to that game. They've got a list of every card ever made.
"and how much do they cost?" Goto a game store and look at their prices, they do vary some. A game store that sells magic cards is likely to have a book with the listed prices of every card ever made, for pricing and buying/selling older cards.
"What the heck is a Black Lotus?"
It's "The Most Expensive Spell". Meaning, I think, that it costs you the most money to buy that card. I dunno, there might be a more expensive one out there now... but it would be a very powerful addition to many decks, and it's out of print, and it was from an early edition whith a more limited number of prints... so it's probably still the most expensive card. For what it does, that's already been answered above.
It can be really fun. Deck build is indeed very important, moreso important than the individual components (although add good components with a good build for the best, of course). And, as has been stated, you can actually make money playing if you try hard and are good at it. I did for a while.
ARandomGod
First Post
ThirdWizard said:
I can't resist furthering comment on this
Black - "Evil" -- hurting others and hurting yourself to hurt others MORE
Blue - Law. Order. Control.
Green - Nature. Growth. "The Land".
White - Good.
Red - Chaos.
Colorless -- True neutral.
Mixing colors is fun. I've personally got a permanent deck with every possible two color combination (and some multi-color one's as well). Opposites can be particularly fun. I very much like my Black/White, and my personal favorite is my Blue/Red.
I've also got a single color deck for every color... except white. Too booring for me. You just can't (in my opinion) build a "strong" all white deck.
Another important thing to remember when dealing with deck size is that (aside from the basic lands) you can only have four of the same card in your deck. A smaller deck increases the chance of you drawing one of your powerful cards.
cards also have a rarity: the chance of you getting one out of a standard boster. Often the rarer cards are more powerful then those that are not. You get one Rare, 4 Uncomon and the rest are common in a standar boster pack.
cards also have a rarity: the chance of you getting one out of a standard boster. Often the rarer cards are more powerful then those that are not. You get one Rare, 4 Uncomon and the rest are common in a standar boster pack.
There are also "Limited" tournaments where you get cards supplied at the event and have to build a deck out of those cards. Limited events come in two varieties:
"Sealed Deck": You get one "tournament pack": 45 spells (3 rares, 9 uncommons, and 33 commons) plus 30 basic lands (6 of each) plus two "boosters (1 rare, 3 uncommons, 11 commons), and build a deck out of what you get.
"Draft": Eight people sit down around a table, each with three boosters. Everyone grabs one of those boosters, open it, select one card, and pass the rest of the booster to their neighbour. The neighbour selects another card, and passes it on - this keeps going until you're out of cards. Then you grab the next booster, repeat the process, but passing the cards the other way. Finally, you repeat it again with the third booster, passing the cards the first way again.
In each case, you then build a deck with a minimum of 40 cards using the cards you got plus any amount of basic land (generally provided by the tournament organizer). In most cases, you want to have 16-18 lands in your deck, and thus 22-24 other cards (out of those 45-75 cards you got).
Limited events are in one way an equalizer for those who don't have money, since everyone starts with a similar amount of cards (though thanks to the luck of the draw, some will have gotten better cards than others). On the other hand, they're kind of expensive in the long run since you need new cards for each event.
A week or two before the release of each new set, many stores hold "prerelease" events, which are usually Sealed deck tournaments using the set which is just to be released (and likely the sets that came before it, if the new set is an expansion of those sets - we'll get to that later). These are usually good times to try the game out, since the cards are unfamiliar to everyone, and since you don't need to have a ton of cards in order to play. The rules are also not enforced as heavily - if you forget something essential you're likely to be allowed takebacks and stuff. The prerelease events are partially designed to attract n00bs to playing. I think the next set (Guildpact) is released in February, so the prerelease is probably going to be held the last weekend of January.
"Sealed Deck": You get one "tournament pack": 45 spells (3 rares, 9 uncommons, and 33 commons) plus 30 basic lands (6 of each) plus two "boosters (1 rare, 3 uncommons, 11 commons), and build a deck out of what you get.
"Draft": Eight people sit down around a table, each with three boosters. Everyone grabs one of those boosters, open it, select one card, and pass the rest of the booster to their neighbour. The neighbour selects another card, and passes it on - this keeps going until you're out of cards. Then you grab the next booster, repeat the process, but passing the cards the other way. Finally, you repeat it again with the third booster, passing the cards the first way again.
In each case, you then build a deck with a minimum of 40 cards using the cards you got plus any amount of basic land (generally provided by the tournament organizer). In most cases, you want to have 16-18 lands in your deck, and thus 22-24 other cards (out of those 45-75 cards you got).
Limited events are in one way an equalizer for those who don't have money, since everyone starts with a similar amount of cards (though thanks to the luck of the draw, some will have gotten better cards than others). On the other hand, they're kind of expensive in the long run since you need new cards for each event.
A week or two before the release of each new set, many stores hold "prerelease" events, which are usually Sealed deck tournaments using the set which is just to be released (and likely the sets that came before it, if the new set is an expansion of those sets - we'll get to that later). These are usually good times to try the game out, since the cards are unfamiliar to everyone, and since you don't need to have a ton of cards in order to play. The rules are also not enforced as heavily - if you forget something essential you're likely to be allowed takebacks and stuff. The prerelease events are partially designed to attract n00bs to playing. I think the next set (Guildpact) is released in February, so the prerelease is probably going to be held the last weekend of January.
Mystery Man
First Post
Chainsaw Mage said:
WWWWHOOP-DE-DOOO!! :\
DreadPirateMurphy said:
Just forward your paychecks to WoTC if you decide to start playing. Yes, it is very expensive but not as expensive as their DnD miniature line.
Staffan said:
These tourneys are a blast.
DreadPirateMurphy
Explorer
Thanks again. A few more:
How long do games last? Is there a time limit?
How are the cards randomized? How do you keep somebody from manipulating the order of the cards?
Are the cards in one player's deck kept secret from the opponent?
Maybe I missed this, but are silver and gold cards (uncommon/rare) more powerful? Is there a limit on the number of silver and gold cards in a deck, percentage-wise? How do you "maintain balance?" Could I have a deck made up only of rares?
Can you continue to use any of the sets in current tournaments?
How long do games last? Is there a time limit?
How are the cards randomized? How do you keep somebody from manipulating the order of the cards?
Are the cards in one player's deck kept secret from the opponent?
Maybe I missed this, but are silver and gold cards (uncommon/rare) more powerful? Is there a limit on the number of silver and gold cards in a deck, percentage-wise? How do you "maintain balance?" Could I have a deck made up only of rares?
Can you continue to use any of the sets in current tournaments?
