Total Newbie: Tell Me About Magic: The Gathering

[Sepulchrave II]

I clueless about this game (amazing, I know). I just bought the 6th edition entry box on e-bay for 5 bucks on a whim. It should arrive in a few days - I'm excited. My wife is excited, too: she plays rpgs sometimes but has never played M:tG either. I anticipate many late evenings.

Is 6th edition the best? What should I expect?

Will I get hooked?

 

[VoidDragon]

Disclaimer: I haven´t played MTG in years.

If I remember correctly they are currently in Ninth Edition. So if you are interested in learning how things work now a sixth edition set isn´t really the way to go. MTG seems to be a hit and miss thing.

I liked it a while ago, but then I found D&D and I much prefer it. Though I did read the older MTG novels. My issues with MTG:

1) A few decks seem to appear and everyone uses these or a variation thereof.
2) Power creep. Each set seems to get more unbalanced.
3) Poor time for money aspect. The three core D&D books and a little imagination will give you infinite adventures.
4) You have to continually buy cards/sets/cycles/whatever if you want to stay in the game.

But it generally seems to vary from person to person. Personally, I found that I didn´t have the time for it, but I have stolen some of the ideas from the novels.

 

[WayneLigon]

I clueless about this game (amazing, I know). .. Will I get hooked?

Hmm. I guess that depends on how clueless you were Do you know what the 'collectable' aspect of a collectable card game means? I think most people get hooked on chasing that particular card they want, since all packs don't have the same cards in them. Some will be very common, while some will be very rare. The rarer cards almost always have very significant effects on game play and a deck customized with a few select cards has a chance of beating a non-optimized deck very quickly. Like, 2-3 rounds quick. It all depends on the luck of the draw, though.

 

[RangerWickett]

For a beginner, honestly the latest core set (9th edition) is the best. It's easy to get into, but isn't as dumbed down as some of the previous core sets. 6th edition at least is after they smoothed out the rules of the game. Some of the early editions played a bit fast and loose, and sometimes things got confusing when people combined strange effects. Now it's all pretty good.

Honestly, if you want to play casually, you could probably invest about $25 every three months to get one or two preconstructed decks out of each set. You wouldn't be competing in tournaments, but you'd have a nice cardpool that's already designed to be playable.

Y'see, they release a set every three months, and with each set, they sell booster packs of 15 random cards (sets range from 150-ish to 300-ish cards). They also sell three or four different 60-card pre-cons that can be played right out of the box. The way the tournament format works, you can use any cards printed within the last 2 years, which keeps the tournament scene fresh with ever changing and evolving deck types, and keeps people buying so they can be competitive.

A word of advice: Try finding established players. The best way to learn a game is from another person.

 

[TwistedBishop]

Magic Online is a fantastic way to get into and understand the game. If you can get past the whole "virtual card" concept that is. You can watch games, play casually, play in tournaments, buy unopened packs of cards from Wizards, and buy or trade cards between other players. The program handles all the rules and turn structure for you, so it's impossible to make a mistake. The best part is there's a free trial area where you can play with a few starter decks of the core set infinitely if you wish. Should be a good way to learn the game.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/magiconline/downloadlinks


As far as your purchase goes, what edition of Magic you have really doesn't matter too greatly, unless you plan on playing in the various tournament settings. Between editions hey change a rule here or there, introduce new abilities, but it's all pretty easy to understand and there haven't been huge changes in a while, afaik. Mostly the new core editions are all about adding or removing cards from professional play.

Will you get hooked? Oh yes, that's what Magic does.

 

[Fishbone]

My advice is to read some articles about deckbuilding on the cheap.
Nate Heiss had a really good article for building decks for about 20 to 30 tickets(about 20 to 40 dollars, markets vary) for MTG:Online.
Battle Royale over at www.starcitygames.com will show you how to build some cheaper decks, too.
If possible try to do things that are cheap for you, like "Ghetto" tournaments(not PC, I know) where somebody has to build a deck with a value under 30 dollars.
www.pojo.com also has some good articles about Peasant Magic, a rareless, 5 uncommon format for people without a big budget. Abe Sargent writes about it occasionally at www.starcitygames.com That is a favorite website of mine, another good site is www.magicthegathering.com Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar has some good articles about tweaking preconstructed decks and the Tribal format.
One final thing, maybe reading some of the more referenced articles about Magic would be reccomended, like "Who's the Beatdown?" and "The Danger of Cool Things". Good luck!
Edit:Shoutout to Chris Romero, a budget deck builder. Look him up.

 

[Terwox]

I'd like to echo going with the latest core set, 9th edition. I'd recommend you and your wife grabbing a couple (or more) friends who also haven't played the game much, and trying a booster draft after everyone has played around for a few days -- it's quite a bit of fun.

In booster drafts, everyone opens a booster pack (15 cards) picks a card, and passes the remaining cards around, until all the cards are picked. This continues for two more boosters. After that, add as much basic land as you want, and play 40 card decks you made on the fly against each other. Lots of fun. You can simulate this with cards you already own by just shuffling a bunch of them up and passing those stacks around too, which is considerably cheaper.

Oh, and yes, buy some of the preconstructed decks. The preconstructed decks from the expansions will start to show how some of the cards work together in convoluted ways.

 

[Solarious]

I can tell you MtG is a time and money sucking black hole of dark amusements and cruel stories. It consumes, sets minds on fire, and causes inexplicable fits of rage, sorrow, and laughter. It has flavour, stories, and ideas that were elegant and have evolved through the ages. It is the alpha of card games, and remains so in both senses of the word.

Would I possibly see you someday playing in a PTQ or something?

 

[Cheiromancer]

I clueless about this game (amazing, I know). I just bought the 6th edition entry box on e-bay for 5 bucks on a whim. It should arrive in a few days - I'm excited. My wife is excited, too: she plays rpgs sometimes but has never played M:tG either. I anticipate many late evenings.

Is 6th edition the best? What should I expect?

Will I get hooked?

I found it highly addictive. The artwork, the collectibility, the lure of cool combos. The rules-lawyering. The backstory. The competitive aspect.

It has a lot of ways of getting its hooks into you.

A pity, really. I was hoping you'd get addicted to story-hour writing instead.

 

[JustKim]

I played the game when it was new, quit after Ice Age and sold all my cards for much more than what I had paid for them.

The gaming experience was not really all that memorable. I felt that the strategy came down to how much money you were willing to spend on new combinations and rare cards, but others disagree with me.

I would instead recommend Munchkin in the way of two-player card games. It's been a blast.