Magic on Deck
November 2, 2022 4:50 PM Subscribe
Thank you for this. Got in during Revised/Fallen Empires, got out around Mirage, have happy memories. It's weird to me that Magic is older than things like cell phones or modern online commerce; I remember calling 1-800 numbers from payphones to get prices for cards. It's nice to have the memories that allow something like this entertaining comic to make sense.
posted by sy at 6:50 PM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by sy at 6:50 PM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
I sold what Revised cards I could find earlier this year for waaay more than I had paid for all of my MtG purchases.
Copy Artifact . . . $40, stupid Zombie Masters for $7 LOL
$1000 put into AAPL in 1997 is worth over $1.25M today while 10 revised booster boxes cost $1000 in '96 and are ~$1.5M today ? ? ?
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:56 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Copy Artifact . . . $40, stupid Zombie Masters for $7 LOL
$1000 put into AAPL in 1997 is worth over $1.25M today while 10 revised booster boxes cost $1000 in '96 and are ~$1.5M today ? ? ?
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:56 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Great link, thanks. Anyone who wants to play on Cockatrice can DM me.
posted by hypnogogue at 7:22 PM on November 2, 2022
posted by hypnogogue at 7:22 PM on November 2, 2022
Notice this was 2018, it's if anything even bigger and more intense now.
posted by PennD at 7:30 PM on November 2, 2022
posted by PennD at 7:30 PM on November 2, 2022
I still have a big box of revised...
Sold my dual lands a while back, but, maybe time to dump them. But, one child plays, and would probably be pissed if I didn't offer them the cards...
Dark Ritual... LOL
posted by Windopaene at 7:40 PM on November 2, 2022
Sold my dual lands a while back, but, maybe time to dump them. But, one child plays, and would probably be pissed if I didn't offer them the cards...
Dark Ritual... LOL
posted by Windopaene at 7:40 PM on November 2, 2022
I wish there was more about Pikula and the cheating, I found this bit from 2004 but when it gets to the actually interesting cheating it is absolutely over my head.
I really need to go through my cards; I started in 1995(?) and played for a couple years, then bought some stuff again c. 2007 when I found a co-worker played. Anything of value is probably either too beat up to be worth a dime or has too much nostalgia for me to get rid of it, but it'd still be neat.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:44 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I really need to go through my cards; I started in 1995(?) and played for a couple years, then bought some stuff again c. 2007 when I found a co-worker played. Anything of value is probably either too beat up to be worth a dime or has too much nostalgia for me to get rid of it, but it'd still be neat.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:44 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I miss MTG so much. What a beautiful game...but also, what a disgustingly awful economic reality. Despite having a shitload of old cards that are worth a lot now, it's just so hard for me to get excited about the game, given the economic reality of the game.
I really hope that at some point some other game comes along that captures what makes MTG great. I've played a lot of games, but nothing has come close to MTG as far as the diversity, complexity, and interesting nature of card interactions.
posted by wooh at 8:11 PM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
I really hope that at some point some other game comes along that captures what makes MTG great. I've played a lot of games, but nothing has come close to MTG as far as the diversity, complexity, and interesting nature of card interactions.
posted by wooh at 8:11 PM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Check out playing online in MTG Arena. I've spent what, 60 bucks over 4 years and rarely feel I'm wanting for cards. It ha all of standard, and some other historic sets, and I know they're working on adding more. Plus it's a lot more friendly than MTGO.
posted by Carillon at 8:14 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 8:14 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well, there have been a ton of other games that have done pretty well.
Most were from Fantasy Flight Games, which created the LCG concept. Not random boosters, but fixed. Which mad great games, but not the market that MtG has.
posted by Windopaene at 8:20 PM on November 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Most were from Fantasy Flight Games, which created the LCG concept. Not random boosters, but fixed. Which mad great games, but not the market that MtG has.
posted by Windopaene at 8:20 PM on November 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’m a big Arena fan. They pretty much feed you a steady stream of cards if you just complete your daily goals. Those goals are things like “play 20 red cards.” I do drop some cash whenever a new set releases, but mostly just to get the extra bonuses from those dailies and winning matches.
And while you are playing other people, there isn’t an open chat feature so you don’t have interaction with trolls. I hate “gamers” even though I play a bunch myself and avoid anything where a manchild can chat at me. There are a few macros like, “good game” “hello” and “nice.” If someone gets annoying by tapping those repeatedly, you can mute the opponent with a simple click on their portrait. But that almost never happens to me.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:56 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
And while you are playing other people, there isn’t an open chat feature so you don’t have interaction with trolls. I hate “gamers” even though I play a bunch myself and avoid anything where a manchild can chat at me. There are a few macros like, “good game” “hello” and “nice.” If someone gets annoying by tapping those repeatedly, you can mute the opponent with a simple click on their portrait. But that almost never happens to me.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:56 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I knew Chris Pikula back when we both traded options at the American Stock Exchange. Someone told me at some point that he was a big deal MTG player but it wasn’t until many years later that I understood the extent of his fame and skill. As far as I knew he was just another options trading misfit. Nice guy, couldn’t say a bad thing about him.
posted by Guernsey Halleck at 12:35 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Guernsey Halleck at 12:35 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think a few top Magic players ended up in the finance sector in some way. I guess it teaches you some things about risk and probabilities.
posted by atoxyl at 8:54 AM on November 3, 2022
posted by atoxyl at 8:54 AM on November 3, 2022
In middle/high school I was a semi-regular - and some of my buddies were very regular - at a local card shop where one of the guys who always won the Friday drafts or whatever and who was starting to do pretty well in open tournaments ended up becoming a very successful pro. I drifted away from the game so I didn’t realize just how Magic-famous he’d become until years later. I’m still more envious of my friends’ older siblings who started playing in 1994 and who have all the truly rare and valuable cards. But that kinda could have been me, too, in a lesser way, because I was always most into the formats with the older cards and certainly had dual lands and stuff except that I lost or traded them.
posted by atoxyl at 9:08 AM on November 3, 2022
posted by atoxyl at 9:08 AM on November 3, 2022
I've been MTG-curious for a long time, but getting started is SUPER intimidating. Is there any way to play Magic that is COMPLETELY disconnected from the "collectable" aspect? I love the idea of a complex head-to-head game that simulates a wizard duel, but I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO interest in getting involved (or getting my kids involved) in loot-box bullshit.
posted by The Tensor at 10:39 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by The Tensor at 10:39 AM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
@The Tensor: You may want to look into something like https://untap.in/. If you own Tabletop Simulator, it's likely you can find a game of EDH (what the kids these days call Commander) to join as well. There are older programs I used to use back when I still played competitively, but that knowledge is almost a decade old at this point, so I don't know if they still have a userbase.
posted by isauteikisa at 11:49 AM on November 3, 2022
posted by isauteikisa at 11:49 AM on November 3, 2022
Also, if you want to play paper Magic but have no desire to play the RNG booster pack lottery, there are many pre-constructed products that WotC // Hasbro offer that you know exactly what you're getting when you purchase them. In addition, the secondary market online is quite active, with sites like https://www.cardkingdom.com/ (unionized!) and https://channelfireball.com/ selling single cards - if you build a deck you like using one of the many online tools, it's easy to buy the cards you want and get them mailed to you (though some individual cards are quite pricey).
posted by isauteikisa at 11:55 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by isauteikisa at 11:55 AM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Is there no variant of Magic where I can go buy like an "Introduction to Magic" set that has enough cards for, say, four people to play? It would be nice to be able to either randomly deal out cards or give everyone an identical deck, then play. But is that just impossible, given the importance of deck-building in the game? (Maybe I should make an Ask about this...)
posted by The Tensor at 12:23 PM on November 3, 2022
posted by The Tensor at 12:23 PM on November 3, 2022
It's a good kind of weird seeing this thread start with a 5 year old comic when this past weekend there was the 30th anniversary celebration in Vegas.
MTG is one of those things that's big enough that it is many different things to different people. You want 'fun' out of the box, they got that in "Game Night" pre-con things. Slightly more random, but super easy, "Jumpstart" products are just randomized half decks. Buy two, slap them together and go. Been playing off and on since the mid 90s, and want to use some of your old stuff? Commander's got you. And I legitimately love commander pre-cons. Jumpstart, or Jump In in Arena is one of my favorite ways to play. Like several other posters, a few bucks feels like it lasts ages if you're not actually trying to win all the things all the time.
I have spent so much money since the pandemic getting back into the game. It started as a way to give the local comic shop more money. Then I found the online bits, then found out a group of old friends played Commander. And I'm fully in again. (It helps that the local shop is very Female and LGBTQ friendly, I wouldn't be back in like this if it wasn't.)
Hasbro has done some weird things of late, but keeping in mind that it's many different things to different groups of people keeps me from getting too angry about the "Whale Hunting".
posted by DigDoug at 12:24 PM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
MTG is one of those things that's big enough that it is many different things to different people. You want 'fun' out of the box, they got that in "Game Night" pre-con things. Slightly more random, but super easy, "Jumpstart" products are just randomized half decks. Buy two, slap them together and go. Been playing off and on since the mid 90s, and want to use some of your old stuff? Commander's got you. And I legitimately love commander pre-cons. Jumpstart, or Jump In in Arena is one of my favorite ways to play. Like several other posters, a few bucks feels like it lasts ages if you're not actually trying to win all the things all the time.
I have spent so much money since the pandemic getting back into the game. It started as a way to give the local comic shop more money. Then I found the online bits, then found out a group of old friends played Commander. And I'm fully in again. (It helps that the local shop is very Female and LGBTQ friendly, I wouldn't be back in like this if it wasn't.)
Hasbro has done some weird things of late, but keeping in mind that it's many different things to different groups of people keeps me from getting too angry about the "Whale Hunting".
posted by DigDoug at 12:24 PM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Most were from Fantasy Flight Games, which created the LCG concept. Not random boosters, but fixed. Which mad great games, but not the market that MtG has.
Truth. A few years back, FFG dropped my personal favorite game, Netrunner. A team of fans and players kept it going (first under the name Project NISEI, now under the name Null Signal Games) and is still releasing cards, keeping tournaments going, determining official formats, etc. The community is fantastic, and since NSG exists in such a legal grey area in terms of having to do this purely for the love of it, there is literally zero required buy-in beyond small nominal fees for tournament entry or what have you. Home-printed card proxies are totally legal. The online platform is totally free. It's pretty amazing, really.
Back in the FFG days, I remember going to my first (and so far only) Netrunner Regionals Tournament. I wasn't very good, but I had a couple of decks that were both weird enough to be off-meta and hard to predict, and which I understood well enough to win with if the stars aligned. First round, I got absolutely stomped by a very nice dude and then afterwards was informed by a compatriot that he was the current reigning Worlds champ. He won the day, naturally, and is still a legend in that game even though I don't know if he's played in years.
This reminded me of a year or two earlier, when one of my best friends invited me over to learn MtG at his place with a group of friends doing a Sealed Draft. Some of my buddies helped me craft my deck, and then in my first game I got absolutely hosed in ways I couldn't even understand by a very nice friend of friend whom I didn't know. I was then informed that he'd recently come in something like 3rd at MtG Worlds.
This fall, now back at Netrunner and much better at it than I was before, I entered the community's Circuit Opener for their "Startup" format, held online over multiple weeks. First round, get slapped down by a very nice dude, and spend the rest of the tournament clawing my way back up the ladder and just missed the cut. My first round opponent had won the whole thing, of course. Because he's Netrunner royalty right now and I didn't know it.
Just my luck, I guess.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:42 PM on November 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Truth. A few years back, FFG dropped my personal favorite game, Netrunner. A team of fans and players kept it going (first under the name Project NISEI, now under the name Null Signal Games) and is still releasing cards, keeping tournaments going, determining official formats, etc. The community is fantastic, and since NSG exists in such a legal grey area in terms of having to do this purely for the love of it, there is literally zero required buy-in beyond small nominal fees for tournament entry or what have you. Home-printed card proxies are totally legal. The online platform is totally free. It's pretty amazing, really.
Back in the FFG days, I remember going to my first (and so far only) Netrunner Regionals Tournament. I wasn't very good, but I had a couple of decks that were both weird enough to be off-meta and hard to predict, and which I understood well enough to win with if the stars aligned. First round, I got absolutely stomped by a very nice dude and then afterwards was informed by a compatriot that he was the current reigning Worlds champ. He won the day, naturally, and is still a legend in that game even though I don't know if he's played in years.
This reminded me of a year or two earlier, when one of my best friends invited me over to learn MtG at his place with a group of friends doing a Sealed Draft. Some of my buddies helped me craft my deck, and then in my first game I got absolutely hosed in ways I couldn't even understand by a very nice friend of friend whom I didn't know. I was then informed that he'd recently come in something like 3rd at MtG Worlds.
This fall, now back at Netrunner and much better at it than I was before, I entered the community's Circuit Opener for their "Startup" format, held online over multiple weeks. First round, get slapped down by a very nice dude, and spend the rest of the tournament clawing my way back up the ladder and just missed the cut. My first round opponent had won the whole thing, of course. Because he's Netrunner royalty right now and I didn't know it.
Just my luck, I guess.
posted by Navelgazer at 12:42 PM on November 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Is there no variant of Magic where I can go buy like an "Introduction to Magic" set that has enough cards for, say, four people to play? It would be nice to be able to either randomly deal out cards or give everyone an identical deck, then play. But is that just impossible, given the importance of deck-building in the game? (Maybe I should make an Ask about this...)
https://www.cardkingdom.com/mtg-supplies/rookie-deck-bundle would probably be a great starter point for you. 5 decks, one for each color, plus a turn order guide that can be useful for new players.
If you want to learn a more 'random' format of Magic, you could try drafting from a cube. https://www.cardkingdom.com/mtg-supplies/card-kingdom-starter-cube is a good starter product that will be suitable for a draft for up to 8 people. Here are a couple of links about cubes and drafting to get you started (which I'd recommend -after- getting basic gameplay mostly down):
An Introduction to Cube Building
What is Drafting in MTG and How Do You Do It?
posted by isauteikisa at 4:52 PM on November 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
https://www.cardkingdom.com/mtg-supplies/rookie-deck-bundle would probably be a great starter point for you. 5 decks, one for each color, plus a turn order guide that can be useful for new players.
If you want to learn a more 'random' format of Magic, you could try drafting from a cube. https://www.cardkingdom.com/mtg-supplies/card-kingdom-starter-cube is a good starter product that will be suitable for a draft for up to 8 people. Here are a couple of links about cubes and drafting to get you started (which I'd recommend -after- getting basic gameplay mostly down):
An Introduction to Cube Building
What is Drafting in MTG and How Do You Do It?
posted by isauteikisa at 4:52 PM on November 3, 2022 [3 favorites]
Introduction to Magic
You can learn yourself on Arena for free with the included starter decks and tutorials.
Then for physical cards for starter play search online for:
Magic: the Gathering 2022 Starter Kit
It’s a little pricier, but I also suggest a box of “jumpstart.” Basically a big box of themed “half decks.” You open two of the packs, shuffle them together, and you have a functioning deck. I keep a box on my desk at work and we sometimes play with them at lunch.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:57 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
You can learn yourself on Arena for free with the included starter decks and tutorials.
Then for physical cards for starter play search online for:
Magic: the Gathering 2022 Starter Kit
It’s a little pricier, but I also suggest a box of “jumpstart.” Basically a big box of themed “half decks.” You open two of the packs, shuffle them together, and you have a functioning deck. I keep a box on my desk at work and we sometimes play with them at lunch.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 4:57 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well I went through my cards and I won't be retiring any time soon, though I also found my ALF cards and Star Trek cards and a Steve Sax baseball card from before he committed that murder in New York!
Unfortunately I sorted the cards by sets and broke up a bunch of decks made 15 years ago, so now I just have a pile of cardboard. Anyone have any tips or guides for building decks (Purely for kitchen table play with spouse and maybe kid)? I'm assuming the first step is to organize them chromatically, but beyond that, I'm guessing maybe keep an eye out for combos...? Presumably there's a utility I could enter all my cards in that could spit out deck suggestions, but I don't really have the time or inclination.
Shut Up & Sit Down has a video about the new incarnation of Netrunner/Project NISEI/Null Signal Games.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:30 PM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Unfortunately I sorted the cards by sets and broke up a bunch of decks made 15 years ago, so now I just have a pile of cardboard. Anyone have any tips or guides for building decks (Purely for kitchen table play with spouse and maybe kid)? I'm assuming the first step is to organize them chromatically, but beyond that, I'm guessing maybe keep an eye out for combos...? Presumably there's a utility I could enter all my cards in that could spit out deck suggestions, but I don't really have the time or inclination.
Shut Up & Sit Down has a video about the new incarnation of Netrunner/Project NISEI/Null Signal Games.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:30 PM on November 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Is there no variant of Magic where I can go buy like an "Introduction to Magic" set that has enough cards for, say, four people to play? It would be nice to be able to either randomly deal out cards or give everyone an identical deck, then play. But is that just impossible, given the importance of deck-building in the game? (Maybe I should make an Ask about this...)
Really the preferred “few strings attached” formats for a lot of players are draft or sealed, where you open fresh packs on the spot and build decks out of them (in draft, first passing them around the table and picking cards one at a time). But wanting some pre-built decks to learn the rules first is perfectly reasonable.
As far as ways to play for free, I used to use a program called Apprentice to build decks from the full set of existing cards and play network games with friends. It looks like the current equivalent might be Cockatrice? We also used to test decks with “proxy” cards - usually just writing the names of cards on excess commons we had lying around but in theory you could print out images of the real cards.
posted by atoxyl at 8:29 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
Really the preferred “few strings attached” formats for a lot of players are draft or sealed, where you open fresh packs on the spot and build decks out of them (in draft, first passing them around the table and picking cards one at a time). But wanting some pre-built decks to learn the rules first is perfectly reasonable.
As far as ways to play for free, I used to use a program called Apprentice to build decks from the full set of existing cards and play network games with friends. It looks like the current equivalent might be Cockatrice? We also used to test decks with “proxy” cards - usually just writing the names of cards on excess commons we had lying around but in theory you could print out images of the real cards.
posted by atoxyl at 8:29 PM on November 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
You can definitely do paid drafts through the online MTG products. If I were to engage in Magic these days that’s probably how I would do it.
posted by atoxyl at 8:36 PM on November 3, 2022
posted by atoxyl at 8:36 PM on November 3, 2022
I knew Chris Pikula back when we both traded options at the American Stock Exchange. Someone told me at some point that he was a big deal MTG player but it wasn’t until many years later that I understood the extent of his fame and skill. As far as I knew he was just another options trading misfit. Nice guy, couldn’t say a bad thing about him.
I've never touched a MTG card or knew anything about it but I went to college with Chris, we hung in the same punk rock circle, even lived in the same giant house chopped up into weird college apartments at one point. Can concur, just the nicest fucking guy. I knew he played at the time, but it was only about 5 or 6 years ago that I learned how big he got in the MTG world.
posted by misskaz at 4:57 AM on November 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've never touched a MTG card or knew anything about it but I went to college with Chris, we hung in the same punk rock circle, even lived in the same giant house chopped up into weird college apartments at one point. Can concur, just the nicest fucking guy. I knew he played at the time, but it was only about 5 or 6 years ago that I learned how big he got in the MTG world.
posted by misskaz at 4:57 AM on November 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
https://cockatrice.github.io/
posted by hypnogogue at 9:42 AM on November 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by hypnogogue at 9:42 AM on November 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
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Too long since I've played. I kept nearly all my cards from the Revised days, and then came into a pile of newer ones a few years ago so I have this weird bifurcated collection. I need to actually sort through it all and just fold them into each other - just fold them in! - probably in a big purpose-made box. Then the next time my friends and I are like "let's just make a few decks and play!" we won't open the giant mixed mess-box they're in now and say again: "oh, right. Well, Mille Bornes it is."
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 6:32 PM on November 2, 2022 [2 favorites]