Summon: MTG Experts!

[Olgar Shiverstone]

So I decided to bite the bullet and order a starter set and some Commander decks. We'll see how that shapes up, but ti looks like that will get me a lot of different themed cards without any randomness.

 

[Vael]

So, the full set is out, the precon deck lists revealed.

It's certainly looking to be a powerful set. Lots of strong cards and the draft looks interesting.

I will say, the EDH precons are very good. Some high value reprints and shockingly good mana bases. Check lands and battlebond lands were practically unheard of in precon decks, so to see them was surprising to me. Of course, it'd be nice if they gave us these lands in all their EDH decks, not the ones that are also more expensive, but that's me.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

So, the full set is out, the precon deck lists revealed.

It's certainly looking to be a powerful set. Lots of strong cards and the draft looks interesting.

I will say, the EDH precons are very good. Some high value reprints and shockingly good mana bases. Check lands and battlebond lands were practically unheard of in precon decks, so to see them was surprising to me. Of course, it'd be nice if they gave us these lands in all their EDH decks, not the ones that are also more expensive, but that's me.

Ok, translate for the non-MTG informed here. EDH precon? Check land? Battlebond land?

If I'm interested in mostly getting good (as in theme and balance, not power or rarity or whatever) Middle Earth-themed cards that can be assembled for casual games, what do you recommend based on what you see? (I know, I'm probably being a bit silly wanting a good LotR game vice a LotR-themed MTG game.)

My FLGS is having a "Pre-Release Event". Would attending that be worthwhile?

 

[Vael]

Ok, translate for the non-MTG informed here. EDH precon? Check land? Battlebond land?

If I'm interested in mostly getting good (as in theme and balance, not power or rarity or whatever) Middle Earth-themed cards that can be assembled for casual games, what do you recommend based on what you see? (I know, I'm probably being a bit silly wanting a good LotR game vice a LotR-themed MTG game.)

So ... a lot of what makes MTG an expensive hobby is the land cards, because good lands (that come into play untapped) are more expensive than lands that enter tapped. On each turn, you can play one land, and if you have to play a tapland (one of those cheaper lands that enter tapped), you have less mana to cast your spells.

So, this card, from the Elven Council deck, is a Check Land as it checks if you have a forest or island and then enters untapped. The deck also has Rejuvenating Springs, which is part of a group of lands called Battlebond lands (because that was the name of the set where the first of them was made). These are lands that are not generally put into preconstructed commander decks, that's why I say these decks have good value, because these are lands that are more expensive than other lands that are traditionally printed into decks like this.

That said ... tbh, getting all four commander decks gives you a solid out of the box experience. They are designed to be balanced against each other and you can just play those four. They're also decent if you were to take them to a regular MTG Commander game, but weaker.

I passed on these decks, but I'm planning the same for the Doctor Who set later this year, I preordered all four with the thought that they'll be left as-is as a four player game.

My FLGS is having a "Pre-Release Event". Would attending that be worthwhile?

Yes. Pre-release events are the most casual and generally newbie friendly magic events there are. I love prereleases, they're all about trying out a brand new set and trying out new cards. That said, they can also be overwhelming because they are Sealed or Draft, and those are what I'd call a higher skill level format and you'll be looking a pool of 60 odd cards and asked to make a useable deck out of them, which can be intimidating.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Ok, translate for the non-MTG informed here. EDH precon? Check land? Battlebond land?

If I'm interested in mostly getting good (as in theme and balance, not power or rarity or whatever) Middle Earth-themed cards that can be assembled for casual games, what do you recommend based on what you see? (I know, I'm probably being a bit silly wanting a good LotR game vice a LotR-themed MTG game.)

My FLGS is having a "Pre-Release Event". Would attending that be worthwhile?

EDH stands for Elder Dragon Highlander, which most folks just call Commander now.

Its very different from Canadian Highlander which doesn't have Commanders.

 

[MoonSong]

I'm already late to the party. But I have some strategies to optimize collecting sets.

First, I like to keep the emotion of opening blind product. Just buying up singles breaks into it.

Also, I keep things simple. Instead of going after every single rare and mythic, I like to focus on the important characters among the mythics and rares. I then target cycles. After that, I also go on to decide how much I want of the set. For many sets I settle for one set of commons, the cycles, the uncommon legendaries and key characters. For some sets I go beyond that and also target a set of uncommons and all of the rare legends.

With clear goals in mind, then I choose what to buy. My original plan was to get one set booster box, one draft box, one bundle, two jumpstart boxes and some of the decks, then trade repeats and high yield cards to complete what I want.

But then the OGL thing soured me on the prospect and the early art just didn't fire up the nostalgia in me like I expected. So I escaled back, one set of commons, key rare legends, and all uncommon legends. Also going for uncommon cycles. With this on mind I thought of a bundle, the kit, one or two jumpstart boxes, and maybe one or two decks.

But then I found the previews with too gimmicky mechanics, and with busted gamebreaking stuff. I could scale back further, but the Pinkerton thing really took all of the joy out of the set for me. If I get over it, I'll go fetch one or two bulk up boxes* from Card Kingdom in a month or two, maybe get the kit, and one bundle box for storage in the secondary market. Many will open collector boosters for the hope of getting the one ring and the market will be flooded with surpluss cards.

* Card kingdom sells aftermarket boxes full of cheap cards from an expansion (collectors call these cards bulk). They call them bulk-up. These are afordable.

 

[Vael]

Well, if you were hoping the crack the Million dollar card, sadly


What's funny is that the price of Collector boosters is already tanking in response.

 

[MoonSong]

Yeah. I heard the news. I was already ready to admit defeat and buy some stuff, so I'll see if there was enough bulk opened for me to collect cheaply. Let's see if prices drop across the board or only on the high end.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I've been enjoying what I've opened and collected. Went to a pre-release; ended up buying a set booster box which probably netted me 90% of the cards in the base set. I'm not super picky about the various special cards -- just having all the characters in some form and enough cards to make some thematic decks is fine. I'm going to try a Jumpstart sealed event next weekend for the "LotR Celebration". After that I may pick up some individual cards to fill in some gaps in my collection.

I think I can have some fun with the LotR sets. Though it seems like 60- and 100-card sets are huge; this game needs a 40-card constructed format (limit to 1 or 2 should cover it, I think).

 

[trappedslider]

I've been enjoying what I've opened and collected. Went to a pre-release; ended up buying a set booster box which probably netted me 90% of the cards in the base set. I'm not super picky about the various special cards -- just having all the characters in some form and enough cards to make some thematic decks is fine. I'm going to try a Jumpstart sealed event next weekend for the "LotR Celebration". After that I may pick up some individual cards to fill in some gaps in my collection.

I think I can have some fun with the LotR sets. Though it seems like 60- and 100-card sets are huge; this game needs a 40-card constructed format (limit to 1 or 2 should cover it, I think).

Constructed is 60 cards can have 4 copies of a card, I haven't played limited. The only other limits are based on sets