Magic: The Gathering

[Seth]

Well, I already know that Allanon and myself are interested in this but was curious to see if anyone else was.

If there's anyone else who likes the game, post here so we can get a discussion going on this.

[draganess]

what is it? if you could tell us more about the game maybe we could all get interested?

[Seth]

Originally Posted by draganess

what is it? if you could tell us more about the game maybe we could all get interested?

Ok...

Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game that's been around since 1994, and was created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield. The game is currently a product of Wizards of the Coast, and has since it's introduction printed 10 core sets of cards and many more expansion sets.

The game's main premise is that each player takes on the role of a "planeswalker" engaged in a duel with another planeswalker. Each player's deck (or library) is the entire sum of knowledge available to them and their hand is the spells that are immediately available.

Players then take it in turns to summon creatures and spells in order to try and reduce their opponent's life total from 20 to 0.

Magic cards come in 5 main colours: white, blue, black, red and green, alongside artifact cards which have no colour, and hybrid and multicolour cards which are - as the name implies - a combination of colours.

White is predominantly associated with defence and domination, restricting the opponent to the point of them being unable to do anything, but isn't necessarily the colour of "good".

Blue is the colour associated with air and water, as well as control spells. Thus this colour is the choice of those who like flying creatures and counterspells.

Black is the colour of death and rot, but not necessarily evil, and thus has a lot of zombies and spells which destroy things.

Red is the colour of rage and destruction, and thus contains a lot of creatures which can attack fairly rapidly and spells that deal damage to your opponents.

Green is the colour associated with life and nature, so it's the domain of life gain, elves and treefolk etc.

That enough, or do you want me to go on about the organised play scene and how people make hundreds of thousands of dollars from playing this? Also, the official website is here.

[Allanon]

Looks complicated at first but it's really not.

I think the last Pre-release I went to was Future Sight. Haven't really met anyone at Uni that plays, which surprised me.

[Detomah]

It sounds like the kind of game I could probably get into, but seeing as I see pretty much nobody, ever, that i'd give the time of day to where I live (except my other half), the chances of me meeting up with MTG players is pretty remote and if a miracle did happen, i'm pretty sure they'd probably be pro's anyway and make me look foolish for never having played before.

[Seth]

Originally Posted by Allanon

Looks complicated at first but it's really not.

I think the last Pre-release I went to was Future Sight. Haven't really met anyone at Uni that plays, which surprised me.

I think I started playing towards the end of the Time Spiral block, so kinda as Future Sight went out and Lorwyn came in. The first thing I bought, though, was the Rakdos theme deck from the Dissension set 'cause it was on offer in the store for £4.50 instead of £7. Was quite a fun deck to play, and a fair few of its cards are now the basis for my red-black constructed deck. I've also finally finished my Faeries deck, it's an epic blue-black control beast. Lots of control spells, a fair few flyers, and several very large creatures which are unblockable and either give me card draw or give me life++. Win.

Originally Posted by Detomah

It sounds like the kind of game I could probably get into, but seeing as I see pretty much nobody, ever, that i'd give the time of day to where I live (except my other half), the chances of me meeting up with MTG players is pretty remote and if a miracle did happen, i'm pretty sure they'd probably be pro's anyway and make me look foolish for never having played before.

I think I pretty much started off playing my mates, who were a bit more experienced at the game than me, so they were kinda helpful with explaining the main keywords like flying or double-strike.

That said, even when I went and played in my first tournament for the Morningtide pre-release most of the people I played against were fairly easy going and didn't really take it too seriously for the most part. There were the odd one or two people who evidently spent too much time playing cards, and this was reflected in their (lack of) social skills, but mostly they were easy going. I also came 3rd that time, lol. First tournament and I came 3rd and walked out with 8 free booster packs for the set. XD

There's a free tutorial download available from PlayMagic.com as well if you wanted to try it out. It basically just sets you up with a 2-colour 9th Core Set deck, and lets you play 2 tutorial games against the computer. It explains the different types of cards (Creature, Instant etc), when you can play them, and how the main keywords work and what they mean. It's a pretty handy program which you can play as often as you like, but up to a point. After a while whooping the AI with a 9th Ed Red-Black deck gets old.

[-Honchy-]

Played it years ago, sorta just stopped playing, like a lot of the old RPG games I used to play.

White decks ftw.

[Seth]

Originally Posted by -Honchy-

Played it years ago, sorta just stopped playing, like a lot of the old RPG games I used to play.

White decks ftw.

Ewww...

[Detomah]

Originally Posted by Seth

There's a free tutorial download available from PlayMagic.com as well if you wanted to try it out.

I'm going to give that a go when I get a bit of spare time.

[Grael]

Used to play quite a lot with my ex and his mates but when we split i had this huge collection and no one to play with so havnt played in like 5 years! I finished just before they started bringing weapons for mobs into it!

I loved my wyrms and my green and black deck was awesome!

[Seth]

Originally Posted by Detomah

I'm going to give that a go when I get a bit of spare time.

You should pick it up pretty easily, the actual basics of the game are fairly simple. It's making the best use of the cards you have and knowing what's available in your deck which is the tricky bit...