Summon: MTG Experts!

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Calling the Magic the Gathering knowledgable ...

I'm not a Magic player. Never had the interest; the CCG format is a real turnoff. I don't likw not knowing what I'm buying. But ... they announced a Lord of the Rings set, and I'm a sucker for all things LotR. I'd like to pick up some LotR themed cards, enough for some casual games. I'm not expecting the game play to be particularly strong for LotR, but I'd be happy to be surprised. Something with an initial fixed distribution would be preferred -- does Magic do anything like that?

I see preorders are up, but there are no descriptions so I have no idea what any of those things mean (other than I know the $5 booster pack is like a pack of 10 random cards). Any suggestions?

Oh, the prices are a bit of a shock for just cards, and this from a guy already in an abusive relationship with a game company over LotR minis!

 

[James Gasik]

Calling the Magic the Gathering knowledgable ...

I'm not a Magic player. Never had the interest; the CCG format is a real turnoff. I don't likw not knowing what I'm buying. But ... they announced a Lord of the Rings set, and I'm a sucker for all things LotR. I'd like to pick up some LotR themed cards, enough for some casual games. I'm not expecting the game play to be particularly strong for LotR, but I'd be happy to be surprised. Something with an initial fixed distribution would be preferred -- does Magic do anything like that?

I see preorders are up, but there are no descriptions so I have no idea what any of those things mean (other than I know the $5 booster pack is like a pack of 10 random cards). Any suggestions?

Oh, the prices are a bit of a shock for just cards, and this from a guy already in an abusive relationship with a game company over LotR minis!

So Magic isn't especially hard to learn, but there are nuances to the rules (of which there are many, to deal with a lot of edge cases) that even masters of the game can be surprised by. If you play casually with friends, this won't be a big deal (unless your friends are ultra competitive jerks, lol).

I can't speak to how balanced the set will be for new players, but bear in mind that Wizards wants people to buy cards, so there are definitely going to be rare powerful cards that will be miserable to play against if someone plays one.

There will definitely, however, be preconstructed decks; I'd use these to play the game.

As for the cards themselves, honestly, I wouldn't buy boosters. It would take a lot of money to collect them all that way, or get the ones you want. Best to wait until the set comes out and purchase anything you want on the secondary market on a website like Card Kingdom or something.

And for play purposes, unless you plan on going to some sanctioned event, I suggest looking into proxies. There's no reason to pony up 50 bucks or more for a card to play a game for fun.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Honestly, if you're not already a Magic player, don't even bother...

But if you do check it out, go for the $17.99 starter kit - it comes with two premade decks.

As I said, though, if you're just getting it for the LotR connection, it's probably not worth it - regardless of the themes of the various sets, they don't really change the basic game play all that much. Playing M:tG with the LotR set isn't going to feel like playing a LotR card game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You’re probably better off tracking down one of the actual LotR CCGs than this MtG set.

1) I’d be surprised if shoehorning Middle Earth magic into MtG mechanics would convey the right feel. The LotR CCGs were designed from the start to evoke the books (and possibly the movies- I don’t remember).

2) the way MtG handles rarity means the character cards you want would be devilishly hard to acquire. As I recall, the LotR CCGs, the famous characters appear on several cards.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Wow, I just watched a video on this, and I'm more confused ... but apparently so is everyone else!

Man, FFG's LCG model was underappreciated.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Wow, I just watched a video on this, and I'm more confused ... but apparently so is everyone else!

Man, FFG's LCG model was underappreciated.

I left MtG because of changing mechanics rules and releasing new cards with known flaws from previous cards, only to have them rapidly nerfed or disallowed from competition.

After seeing that video, I’m glad I left when I did.

 

[Vael]

Calling the Magic the Gathering knowledgable ...

I'm not a Magic player. Never had the interest; the CCG format is a real turnoff. I don't likw not knowing what I'm buying. But ... they announced a Lord of the Rings set, and I'm a sucker for all things LotR. I'd like to pick up some LotR themed cards, enough for some casual games. I'm not expecting the game play to be particularly strong for LotR, but I'd be happy to be surprised. Something with an initial fixed distribution would be preferred -- does Magic do anything like that?

I see preorders are up, but there are no descriptions so I have no idea what any of those things mean (other than I know the $5 booster pack is like a pack of 10 random cards). Any suggestions?

Oh, the prices are a bit of a shock for just cards, and this from a guy already in an abusive relationship with a game company over LotR minis!

Expect the game to be a game of Magic, with LotR styling. But here's a quick breakdown of sealed product.

Draft Boosters: The standard booster, these are primarily used for Limited play, Drafting or playing Sealed.
Set Boosters: These aren't designed so much for gameplay but for cracking for fun. You can get art cards and other such stuff. They're ... fine, but confusing.
Collector Boosters: Blinged out foils, specific alt art cards are in these, but these are whale products and tbh, I dislike them and never recommend buying them.

Commander Decks: If you want an honest recommendation, these are what I would buy. Commander is the main casual (multiplayer) format, it's the only main format I play, and precon decks have gotten to be very good out of the box experiences to play magic. The Warhammer decks from last year are considered some of the best decks made and sold by WotC, and I kinda expect these to be of similar quality. Even the reprint cards are going to have LotR art, so they should be pretty good. If you decide to get all four, know that they are designed and tested against each other.

 

[Zardnaar]

I left MtG because of changing mechanics rules and releasing new cards with known flaws from previous cards, only to have them rapidly nerfed or disallowed from competition.

After seeing that video, I’m glad I left when I did.

I quit when they turned the game into loot boxes and mythic rarest were made for standard play.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Draft Boosters: The standard booster, these are primarily used for Limited play, Drafting or playing Sealed.

click, whistle

You’re speaking Dolphin, man — can you translate? I’ve never played the game. The rest I followed.

Seems like the Starter would be good. $200 for four Commander decks is insane for four decks of cards.

 

[Mad_Jack]

click, whistle

You’re speaking Dolphin, man — can you translate? I’ve never played the game. The rest I followed.

Seems like the Starter would be good. $200 for four Commander decks is insane for four decks of cards.

Draft boosters are the standard packs of random Magic cards... He's mentioning the different types of public tournament play formats, which you can completely ignore if you're just playing a game with friends...

The Commander decks are specifically built for the Commander format, which is different than just playing the standard game... In Commander, you play a hundred card deck where you can only have one of each non-land card, and a Commander card that has special abilities that you can use in the game.
A regular game deck isn't limited to a certain number of cards, although most decks are 60 cards including basic lands, and you're limited to four of each non-land card. There are no Commander cards in the standard game. The different tournament formats that Vael mentioned have rules and limitations about which sets of Magic cards you're allowed to have in your deck.