Might return after years away

[AdmundfortGeographer]

CCGs can be a hell of a money sink -- something, possibly, to watch out for.

Oh, I am totally familiar with that. I succumbed to that affliction in the early days of Magic, when it was all the rage. I got off the train based on what I saw, it felt like themed sets were accelerating. I just had to stop.

Still, I know I have a collector mindset. I did't care about getting the best just so my decks can dominate everyone. That'd be a fun side effect though. I got crazy because I just "had to own it, especially the good stuff".

All that said , I went in to my FLGS this afternoon, The Source in Falcon Heights, MN. Saw they had the Eldrazi Intro decks, I grabbed four of the five packs. My entertainment budget was under $50, using my store discount let me grab the fourth. My wife is out of town for a week so that will give my son and me a chance to learn and play a bunch. We're off to open our packs and check out our cards.

Going to pull my son away from Fat Princess on our PS3 first though.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Our first game was a blast. My son played Leveler's Scorn and I played Eldrazi Arisen. To me the decks felt balanced. My son suffered from bad draws right away while mine went smooth. This lead to my battlefield filling up with creatures while his was very thin.

I got to teach him about how certain cards can add on extra damage after creatures battle in combat to deal more damage. His eyes grew big with that revelation with a smile. In the end my deck really walloped his, he had a great time and insisted he gets to use Eldrazi Arisen next time we play. I'm going to use one of the other four decks for mine.

All around success.

 

[Asmor]

Glad to hear that you had such a good experience, Eric! Also, you're probably lucky to get those theme decks, AFAIK they're not actually supposed to be on sale til next week. o_0

I did want to mention that, after playing in the prerelease this morning at midnight, I think Eldrazi would be an absolutely great set to bring a new player in on. The slower pace and bigger spells and creatures are probably good for keeping the interest of new players, and there aren't really many mechanics which seem very complicated.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Glad to hear that you had such a good experience, Eric! Also, you're probably lucky to get those theme decks, AFAIK they're not actually supposed to be on sale til next week. o_0

I thought so too. As I was asking some of the store's employees about the Eldrazi set an avid Magic player who attended a prerelease at another store came up and gave me some great advice about the set. He too saw the Intros on sale and asked the store employee if that was right. The store employee said that he thought they were allowed to sell the intro packs on the Prerelease date, and the booster packs would go on sale on the announced date. *shrug* I grabbed mine anyway!

I did want to mention that, after playing in the prerelease this morning at midnight, I think Eldrazi would be an absolutely great set to bring a new player in on. The slower pace and bigger spells and creatures are probably good for keeping the interest of new players, and there aren't really many mechanics which seem very complicated.

I noticed exactly that. Slow pace, big creatures.
We very rarely had to pause to look up a keyword, though I took good care to talk through the implications of certain card play combinations. That, I think, caused our first game to take quite long. Oh, my son really hated the annihilator ability some of those huge Eldrazi used on him, so he's looking forward to dishing it back at me.

 

[Runestar]

I too would caution against being sucked into the so-called "arms race", where you feel you must splurge on expensive rares to round out your deck and make it more effective. While I was still playing years ago, I was able to make decent decks entirely out of commons/uncommons for under $10 each. I wouldn't say they were the best, but fairly good for the money spent, and still able to win a fair amount of the time.

I did want to mention that, after playing in the prerelease this morning at midnight, I think Eldrazi would be an absolutely great set to bring a new player in on. The slower pace and bigger spells and creatures are probably good for keeping the interest of new players, and there aren't really many mechanics which seem very complicated.

Honestly, the introduction of all these huge creatures that pretty much signal the end of the game when they appear worry me, since I don't like the idea of gameplay being dictated by whoever plays the largest creature first. I personally prefer a faster paced, attrition-based game where smaller weenies trade blows with fast burn and cheap counterspells.

I have been out of touch with Magic for quite a while now, but how prevalent are abilities which let you directly put creatures into play without paying its casting cost? Back then, we had call of the wild, show and tell and reanimator decks which can easily sneak such beasties into play by 2-3rd round.

It seems to me that all these exorbitant casting costs will simply encourage players to find ways and means to get around actually casting them the old fashioned way. Maybe I am just outdated, but in my time, a game's outcome was more or less dictated by the 6th round.

 

[Asmo]

Maybe I am just outdated, but in my time, a game's outcome was more or less dictated by the 6th round.

The two previous sets -Zendikar and Worldwake - was blistering fast, and limited games (like sealed deck, draft,etc) was often over round 5-7.
Complaints was raised over this, so Wizards made a set that would make games last longer.

Asmo

 

[Asmor]

Complaints was raised over this, so Wizards made a set that would make games last longer.

Asmo

Well, that's not quite accurate... I'm almost positive Rise of the Eldrazi was completely done, or at least significantly done, long before players got their first previews of Zendikar.

Mark Rosewater's said that they were worried about how popular the "land matters" theme would be, and so a major reason for the big-small-big design was so that they wouldn't have to invest a full three sets on a mechanic that might flop.

I don't recall exactly where the inspiration for RotE came from, but I'm reasonably sure that "really big fricking creatures" was chosen as the major theme early on and everything else (slower pace, defender subtheme, etc) flowed from there.

 

[Dire Bare]

Honestly, the introduction of all these huge creatures that pretty much signal the end of the game when they appear worry me, since I don't like the idea of gameplay being dictated by whoever plays the largest creature first. I personally prefer a faster paced, attrition-based game where smaller weenies trade blows with fast burn and cheap counterspells.

Your play preference is certainly legit, but it isn't the only way to build Magic decks and play the game, and hasn't been for quite some time. Heck, I'd argue since the beginning!

Magic is an impressively OLD collectible card game, what over 15 years now? WotC tries to keep things fresh and interesting with each new set with a combination of a fun storyline and new mechanics . . . and sometimes new mechanics and card types that change the nature of limited play. The new set, Rise of the Eldrazi, definitely provides a new playing environment that changes how the game plays without actually changing the underlying game itself. To me, that's a good thing!

But after this set has seen its day in the sun and folks mix the cards into their larger collections for more casual play . . . . the game doesn't become unbalanced or fundamentally changed. We'll just have some big-ass creatures in the sea of options when building casual play decks.

 

[Asmo]

Well, that's not quite accurate... I'm almost positive Rise of the Eldrazi was completely done, or at least significantly done, long before players got their first previews of Zendikar.

Mark Rosewater touches upon this in an article where he says:

"Let's begin with the biggest sticking point. In order to have the Eldrazi feel the way the Eldrazi needed to feel, they ended up at a very high power level with appropriately high mana costs. The cheapest of them cost 7 and the most expensive is 15. In faster Limited environments, such as Zendikar, the game is often over before you're able to play a seven-drop. The solution to this problem was two-fold:

Solution #1: Slow the game down

The first trick to getting out large creatures is making the game last to the point where you can cast them. This is obviously a big shift from Zendikar and Worldwake, one that is important to understand when you sit down to play Rise of the Eldrazi. These games (I'm talking Limited here) are going to go longer. A card like Glory Seeker ( for a 2/2) that would be a reasonable attacker in most Limited formats is significantly weaker in this format.

Let's walk through some of the ways the design team slowed down the format: "Walls matter"
etc, etc.

On the Rise, Part II : Daily MTG : Magic: The Gathering

I´m sure that they knew ZE/WW would be pretty fast early on, so they had it mind when ROTE was created.

Asmo

 

[Runestar]

So are people actually expected to pay 15 mana to get a beastie into play? What about time-tested concepts such as mana curve? What am I supposed to do in the early turns? Just play land and say go?

I can see use for them as a stalemate-breaker. If by turn15-20, victory is still far from certain, forcing a legend into play can easily turn the tide in your favour. But to make one the cornerstone of your deck strategy??? Most of the time, they seem like they will just sit impotently in your deck or hand.