Due to the new Xbox Live Arcade being released, it seems to have sparked some interest in the game. Perhaps it's nostalgia, or maybe it's new people to the game entirely.

I was considering buying some of those bulk "1000 common/uncommon" packs on ebay to make some basic decks to play again with some buddies. I don't care enough/have the money/have the time to worry about purchasing 5 booster packs a week trying to find the best cards, but it would be something fun to do every once in a while.

Just wanted to see who used to play, who still plays, or who enjoys the Arcade game. It has it's problems, but I still think it's enjoyable.

7/10/2009 4:10:03 PM

im not flaming, but i just don't see myself ever being able to get into this Magic stuff

i DLed the demo, just didn't do it for me

7/10/2009 4:12:55 PM

MTGO is the way to go

Cards cost much less and you can play anytime

My latest Bant aggro deck is raping right now

my handle there is bigdirty if you wanna go

[Edited on July 10, 2009 at 4:21 PM. Reason : x]

7/10/2009 4:14:58 PM

I'm very prepared for flames, it is an extremely nerdy topic, lol.

Nah, it's just an acquired taste. I just think of it as a strategy game with cards, and I've always enjoyed strategy games. The major turnoff for me is the cost obviously...not a one and done cost like a video game.

7/10/2009 4:15:00 PM

I was in the tournament scene two years ago before we had our child. My cards are organized into decks and folders based on rarity. Haven't been motivated to pick it back up but I haven't really wanted to sell them off either. <shrug>

7/10/2009 4:16:00 PM

That's the thing, I wish when I was younger my mom hadn't convinced me I should sell them off to make some money

I had started playing with revised, and went up to...I think Mirage was my last

7/10/2009 4:33:52 PM

Slave plays Magic?

You play Pro-Tour ever SF?

7/10/2009 4:56:22 PM

I sold a 1000 card collection for 3 times what it was actually worth at the time

7/10/2009 4:59:24 PM

No I don't like to play in person; as a matter of fact I don't like to let people I know irl even know I play

7/10/2009 5:00:09 PM

The xbox live arcade game satisfies me for now... Kinda cool how you get to unlock the rare/awesome cards as you play each deck over and over again. I'm sure I have a box of cards somewhere...but playing irl - eh.

mildew23 on xbl, if you catch me while I am on then I will play

7/10/2009 5:07:33 PM

damn, have any high dollar cards? obviously with all the new sets and restrictions, the value of old stock has gone down on some of the stronger cards (Birds of Paradise ), but dual lands and all that are still good I think. I at least have a bunch of commons/uncommons, and I'm sure others do as well.

I played Tempest block and the start of Urza's very casually, then a friend got me back into it at the end of Odyssey, and I played fairly seriously through Onslaught and Mirrodin blocks. Stopped during the Kamigawa block. I mostly did FNM drafts weekly and some constructed tournaments locally. Never did a bigger tournament mostly because my rogue decks weren't consistent...or maybe they were, but I just never got the nerve to compete at a higher level . I tuned my decks to beat the net-decks...I read a ton on http://www.mtgsalvation.com back in the day

I recently came across my cards and have them here in Raleigh, but my decent decks have proxies for the older rares from the Onslaught/Mirrodin/Kamigawa era and I don't feel like shelling out to fill them up . I did try to go by one of the card shops here, but they only had the most recent blocks. I only got the cards to play with my friends though, no more spending $texas on this game.

^X Your revised stuff would be worth money, but later stuff, not likely. A lot of the cards I kept as 'collectors items' have dropped in value, despite being $30+ power cards (Cursed Scroll, Sliver Queens, Birds)

Yeah, most of the magic players tend to be in real life, haha

[Edited on July 10, 2009 at 5:11 PM. Reason : sweet baby jesus this blew up]

7/10/2009 5:09:10 PM

Cursed Scroll. I'd almost forgotten about that one.

I started playing during the The Dark expansion.

[Edited on July 10, 2009 at 5:12 PM. Reason : ]

7/10/2009 5:11:51 PM

Birds are still legal in every set

and sell for about 9-12 these days

7/10/2009 5:11:59 PM

^^^^^Hah, when I used to play by far the worst part of going to magic tournaments was being at magic tournaments.

[Edited on July 10, 2009 at 5:12 PM. Reason : .]

7/10/2009 5:12:00 PM

Very true.

Knoxville may have been the worst I remember.

[Edited on July 10, 2009 at 5:14 PM. Reason : ]

7/10/2009 5:13:53 PM

I thought they were out of print for Type 2...that's cool then.

I could never get into the MTGO I don't think. It'd probably be a lot more fun, but there's something about having the cards in hand that makes it worth it when you buy/trade your way to completing your deck or foiling it out.

7/10/2009 5:13:58 PM

haha, yeah, we would do pre-releases in Raleigh. One of the guys from our local group had an entire binder of Alpha/Beta rares (including Power) stolen. It was sad times.

I remember I won a sealed deck competition at a pre-release against this pro-tour guy..dunno his name, but he was basically like "alright, i'm gonna beat this scrub, get my packs, then get over to draft". Then I beat him game 1 and he was all >_>. He got game 2, and then I won game 3 to the amazement of his friends and he was pretty pissed

[Edited on July 10, 2009 at 5:17 PM. Reason : my b, double post, figured someone else would post]

7/10/2009 5:16:55 PM

I don't want to let my nerdiness out of the bag, but last time I checked, I still had the highest type 1 rating in hawaii (where I grew up).

Also, I sold most of my cards to study abroad when i was in college.

[Edited on July 10, 2009 at 6:45 PM. Reason : .]

7/10/2009 6:44:21 PM

^
HAHA

7/10/2009 6:45:16 PM

yeah i think you win

although looking at it, I think getting back in and playing type 1.5 or extended would be about right

[Edited on July 10, 2009 at 6:52 PM. Reason : lkj]

7/10/2009 6:49:51 PM

I'm a complete newb to this whole game, but I picked up the xbox live game and love it. Don't know if I could get into the actual card version, because the video game version just goes at a faster pace.

7/11/2009 9:11:00 AM

I heard they just changed the rules at the beginning of the month. I played 2 headed giant for fun a few years ago =)

7/11/2009 12:57:53 PM

They are collector's items just like baseball cards and pogs!!!

7/11/2009 1:29:04 PM

I'm not one to really care about things like this, and I do some pretty nerdy shit, but I can honestly say the single biggest reason I don't still play Magic is the social stigma attached to the game. The second biggest reason is 90% of Magic players.

7/11/2009 1:40:10 PM

See that's another part of the live card game. I have absolutely no desire to meet the standard Magic player at a card shop. I would just want to get my buddies involved and maybe get a few of them to play.

7/11/2009 1:44:40 PM

^^,^ Yeah, that's another reason why I stopped playing. The game is fun as hell when you get a good deck and its like a crazy chess match of strategy, bluffing, and gambling, but the majority of the players are just complete fail. Fairly interesting, but fail. Fortunately, the guys back at my shop were cool for the most part.

^Unfortunately, its probably about THE hardest game to teach someone

Quote :

"I heard they just changed the rules at the beginning of the month"

They did...my friend keeps up with the news on the side and told me some of the stuff. A lot of the terminology changed to get more fantasy based (Playing a spell is now strictly 'Casting' a spell, playing a creature is 'Summoning' a creature like back in the day).

The biggest thing that amazes me is they took out mana burn...so that you can now simply tap out everything and not worry about burns. Not that big of a game changer generally, but when you run against mana accel decks (Mirari's Wake), its a huge advantage for them not taking ticks from numbers not coming out just right. Mana pools do empty, but just don't burn.

7/11/2009 3:16:33 PM

^,^^ <assuming you're not the referenced^^^ demographic>

7/11/2009 3:21:36 PM

^^ Because of cards like this, mana burn would have probably been a headache



I've been reading on "Daily Magic the Gathering" lately, and this is a combo they spoke of with the above cards.

Turn one play a land, Llanowar Elves.
Turn two play a land, Elvish Archdruid.
Turn three play another, tap all three lands and Llanowar Elves for Hunting Triad. Okay, now the Elves squad has five 2/2 Elves in play ... Tap Elvish Archdruid for five mana to deploy ye olde Elvish Promenade and you've got ten 2/2 creatures ... on turn three.

Now granted, you've got to have a perfect draw basically...but still...

and then throw this down on top of it



I disagree with them taking it out, but whatever. Again, it's not like I play anymore at this point.

So basically what I mentioned in my first post, has anyone bought a "bulk" set from ebay?


[Edited on July 12, 2009 at 11:04 AM. Reason : .]

7/12/2009 10:59:37 AM

Cards like that are the exact reason why mana burn should be kept as a rule.

7/12/2009 11:28:50 AM

i recently sold a lot of my cards, kept all my decks though, and a binder of rares and shit... i might sell the rares eventually though.....


who still plays?

7/12/2009 11:40:51 AM

I played back forever ago when I was in elementary school. I was working with middle schoolers at the Y a year or so ago and they would always play magic. I ended up putting together a decent deck for like 20$ online and romped them every day. It featured this combo: +

It was pretty unfair against their shit decks

7/12/2009 11:53:41 AM

Quote :

"Cards like that are the exact reason why mana burn should be kept as a rule."

Agreed, that's a balance point of the mana accel. Not a very good balance, but it makes you think more regardless. Anyway...

^My friend has a really annoying control deck that utilizes these:



plus stuff like Mirari's Wake, Decree of Justice, and blue control. It seems janky, but it can dominate if it survives the early game.

--

Are there any card shops that have older rares? I was thinking of going by one and seeing if I could pick up some stuff to finish out one of my Onslaught era decks (basically sentimental value)

7/12/2009 12:20:34 PM

when if first saw this online i thought it looked like the picture from a magic card. Is there actually a bear calvary card?

7/12/2009 12:25:06 PM

7/12/2009 12:58:39 PM

the 360 game is pretty fun despite its lack of customization. the decks feel pretty balanced and have some sweet combos.

7/12/2009 1:48:58 PM

the demo is taking like, years to download

7/12/2009 3:45:12 PM

i have quite enjoyed the game on XBox Live

7/12/2009 3:51:15 PM

I just bought the game on Xbox Live - it's quite fun.

7/12/2009 8:35:21 PM

Quite.

7/13/2009 12:09:01 PM

apprentice - free, all the cards up through the 10th ed i think. can be played online...

7/13/2009 2:58:40 PM

i used to play but had no one to play with so i would create decks and put them against each other

now that is sad

i have to admit that reading some of those cards and the possibilities are intriguing

its a pretty cool game

i do have a life now . . .

7/13/2009 3:15:47 PM

^Likewise, except I would build decks and playtest against the decks that won the big tournaments and such Most of my IRL playing was in draft tournaments

^^They have patches for all of the sets, they just are hard to find sometimes. Playing online can be kind of meh though.

7/13/2009 6:45:00 PM

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Default.aspx

A lot of good reading on there. Especially the "Building on a Budget" column.

7/14/2009 10:24:36 AM

7/14/2009 10:47:45 AM

Quote :

"(9:37:31 AM) x: deathtouch and lifelink are instantaneous....don't hit stack (9:37:37 AM) x: instantaneous with damage (9:37:55 AM) x: also, damage doesn't use the stack anymore....as far as i can tell (9:38:00 AM) TheNCPeter: wat (9:38:15 AM) x: at least it made a comment that if a creature's not there, that it doesn't deal damage (9:38:26 AM) x: like....no putting it on the stack and then sacking it to x (9:38:45 AM) x: HUGEST thing (9:39:01 AM) x: in the attack step (9:39:05 AM) TheNCPeter: uh, there's some bigger change? (9:39:13 AM) x: player a attacks (9:39:35 AM) x: player b declares blockers 1, 2, 3, n (9:40:03 AM) x: player a can assign damage equal to blocker 1's defense value (9:40:24 AM) x: THEN, any extra damage can continue to be dealt to blocker 1 or go on to blocker 2 (9:40:42 AM) x: which then can fill up that one's defense value and go on to blocker 3, ect (9:41:16 AM) x: so you have to try to "kill" the blockers declared lead block before you can even try to move on (9:41:46 AM) TheNCPeter: sweet black baby jesus (9:42:02 AM) TheNCPeter: well they just changed everything now did they (9:42:05 AM) TheNCPeter: *didn't they (9:42:12 AM) x: apparently (9:42:42 AM) TheNCPeter: when did these changes hit? (9:42:47 AM) x: 2010 (9:42:53 AM) x: 2010 core set (9:43:03 AM) x: so....this month"

7/23/2009 9:45:26 AM

yeah if you had been keeping up with the forums and blogs over the past several months this is OLD as can be

We've debated the changes since they were announced at my FNM at have come to the conclusion that while initially they will be a pain in the ass, they will be good for the game in the long run

7/23/2009 9:55:44 AM

yeah, because everyone on here keeps up to date with the MTG forums

7/23/2009 11:18:31 AM

Quote :

"yeah, because everyone on here keeps up to date with the MTG forums"

7/23/2009 11:52:48 AM

if you don't the you obviously don't care enough about the metagame to effected that much by the rules change

Go back to playing Grizzly Bears and Seige Mastodons while I'm running Rafiqs and Nobles

LO FUCKING L

7/23/2009 1:19:06 PM

That was possibly the saddest post in the entire history of TWW. That is saying A LOT.

7/23/2009 1:47:55 PM