Category: Magic

 

 

Magic: The Gathering

 

 

Is it the end? Armageddon?

 

Over 25 year ago one of my friends was learning how to play some sort of card game from another person, both of whom I still keep in contact with. He was learning how to play Magic. The game took me like a Force of Nature. It was sooooo fun! As I delved deeper into this world I began to learn the inner workings of the game and couldn’t wait to play it.

It was a time of Prosperity. There was a large group that I played with. I went to tournaments. Of course I lost miserably but it was fun. I enjoyed it.

 

After a time, I started to have experiences with the game that made me question why I am playing the game. Experiences as in many different experiences in different forms. Of course the real world of life was involved but it was not only on that account. One of the main reasons that I am not going to go into detail about is mainly due to some bad experiences with the community. My love of Magic began to crumble and fall to Ashes. This is a time where I have always considered it the dark times of Magic.

For some reason, a few years ago I tried to see if this game still gave me something to look forward too. It did! I came back to a great state of the game. I feel that the community is healthy and growing and is a driving force behind certain aspects of the gaming community.

With everything doing so well, I have a hard time making this choice. But, I feel it is something that I need to do. This time for different reasons. The Apocalypse has come and I have again decided to leave Magic. Is it for good? I am not sure. The main reason I am deciding to leave is an obvious and generic one. It is of course a financial rabbit hole. That is the reason I have only really played Sealed recently. Though, this is not that much of a financial burden, it is one. And a time burden. When playing sealed, I enjoy it but I feel my motive is only that of winning more packs rather then having fun. And, on top of that, I haven’t really played any other format recently so I feel I am wasting resources that could be going to something else. My cards sit on a shelf or binder unopened and unused. I feel like I might really like EDH or Commander, not really sure why there are two names for it. But, I don’t play that. In the new release of Magic, I did not enter into any Sealed tournaments and I didn’t even spend time to this day looking at any of the cards.

My love for board games and other card games has only increased in the past years. FFG’s LCG series always has me looking to see what is coming out next. But, for Magic, I think it is time again to put it away. It is a great game and I will always know and love Magic. I’m sure at some point it is highly possible for it to resurface but for now, it is time to say goodbye.

In Magic, there are many ways to play this game. My favorite format is sealed deck and to be more specific pre-release sealed deck. Every few months Magic releases a new set of cards. Some cards can be reprints of older cards but most of the cards are new cards. The sets are grouped into blocks and now two sets consist of one block. Each block has some sort of theme that is grouped with that block. Amonkhet is the name of the newest Magic set and considered the first of the sets in the block. Amonkhet is the name of the world which is an Egyptian themed harsh desert planet. Magic designers have created a story of a group of planeswalkers. Planeswalkers are powerful people who have been gifted with the magic to travel to different worlds. These planeswalkers have formed an alliance and are hunting down Nicol Bolas who is a powerful elder dragon and is believed to be on Amonkhet.

In the sealed deck format, players are given six booster packs and one special promo card. Using these randomly selected cards, the players will build a deck to play with against others. One of the reasons I enjoy this format is because everyone starts on a level playing field. Of course some cards are better then others and other people may get these cards but I think if you build your deck well and play well then you will do very good. It is about skill of what to include in your deck construction and the decisions that you make during the game that will get you wins.

There are some general rules to follow when building a sealed deck but this is not always the case and rules are meant to be broken. There is a minimum of 40 cards that you can include in your deck and I think you should stick to 40-41 cards to have a chance to draw your more powerful cards. Second is the amount of lands that you should include in your deck. 17 lands are the standard. Third is the amount of creatures you have in your deck. 14-17 creatures is standard. Fourth is your mana curve. You should have a somewhat bell curve of casting costs for things in your deck. Fifth is your removal. Having some sort of cards or abilities to kill creatures is a good thing. Sixth is synergy. Cards that work together to create a more powerful effect can be great to use on your side of the battlefield. These are not in any specific order in my opinion but if you have all of these in your deck, then I think you have created the best deck you can with your card pool.

I liked to create two color decks in the sealed deck format. A lot of times, generating mana is an issue. You may have a great spell or creature but you can’t cast it because you don’t have the right mana or even enough mana. When I started to open up my packs I saw that I had a lot of creatures in white with some removal. I saw some great creatures with abilities in black but not very many. But, there was also some removal. In Blue, I had two removal and less then six total creatures. Green had one removal, some synergy and not great creatures but also not bad. Red had one great creature, some average creatures and a great spell. In the end, I decided to go with a Red/Green hopefully aggression or aggro deck. I only had a few removals and I usually like those but I felt I had some good synergy and enough aggro creatures.

Since I went to a midnight pre-release, the tournament was not completely full but there were about 35-45 people. There are four rounds of play and if your record is 2-2 then you can win prize packs. Each round you play 2/3 and continue to play others with the same record. My first opponent was playing a red/green/white deck. In game one, he did not do very much. Later in the game he brought out a few creatures and drew the game out but I won.

Hmmm. There is a new mechanic called exert which gives your creature some sort of bonus when attack and I had a few in my deck but it was not as fast as I thought it was going to be. In game two we stalled again mid game and then he brought out a Samut, Voice of the Dissent. Flash, double strike, vigilance, haste and give all other creatures haste. I didn’t have anything to deal with that and I lost. In game three I had to mulligan and was at a card disadvantage. I came out very strong. He decided to attack with all his creatures which brought me down to about ten life. He was at 10 and I had a fling in my hand but would not be able to deal lethal damage this turn. I attacked with all my creatures and brought out a blocker. He then Flashed in Samut during my end step, fought my creature with Green Cartouche of strength and killed me. I probably should have played more cautiously but it was a close fun game.

My deck broke some rules of my general deck construction. I was running 16 land and my mana curve was very low. I had four creatures that cost four and two double cards with the second side costing four but the initial card costing three. The rest of the cards I had were three casting cost and lower. It was not even a battle with my second opponent. She was playing a Green/Blue deck. I had two lands the first game and lost. In game two, I was able to draw some extra cards and had lots of red land, but had a hand full of green cards. I lost again. She had a great card called Sandwurm Convergence creating a 5/5 wurm token every turn and great mana fixers. She also had multiple Naga Oracle which was a card I had but kind of dismissed its abilities in my initial deck construction. This is an awesome card in sealed.

Ok. 0-2. If I win the next two games I might get something. My next opponent had a Black/Blue deck. In the first game, We were even in the beginning to mid game. He had an Edifice of Authority that stalled my creatures from attacking. I was finally able to get in my Heat-Piercer Manticore and sacked a four toughness creature with Honed Khopesh to deal five damage to him. Then I put Honed Khopesh on the Manticore and casted a fling at him. In game two, I saw Edifice of Authority again and stalled out. He also had some cycling synergy with Pitiless Vizier giving it indestructible and Rhonas’s Monument giving +2/+2 to a creature when a creature enters the battlefield. I lost game two. Game three was a complete repeat of game two and I lost.

0-3. Of course my last opponent dropped from the tournament because you can’t win any prizes with a record of 1-3 and it was 4 AM. I stuck around to watch a friend finish his last match. It was really fun to see two 2-1 decks going at it. In the end of that round, my friend was able to win and finished with a 3-1 record. Of course he broke the rules as well with a five color deck, but he had multiple mana fixers.

After getting some sleep, I re-made my deck with the card pool I had. I made a Black/White/Blue deck…all the colors I didn’t play? More removal and a better mana curve. I think this deck would have been a lot better for me. Over all, I just didn’t do very well this time. I don’t even recall having a record with no real wins. I usually average a 2-2 record and an occasional 3-1. I think only playing pre-releases is getting to me and I am getting a bit rusty. Unfortunately for Magic, there are many other games that I want to play as well so it will probably continue to be this way. I enjoyed my time and it is an interesting set. Very nostalgic for me as I see a lot of cards I remember from long ago.

Magic: The Gathering. What can I say about  this game. For me, there is a love/hate relationship with this game. It is the game that first got me into modern board gaming, or card gaming over 20 years ago. It is a game that after 20 years, is still going strong by gaining new players, pushing the boundaries for coming up with new and creative ideas and could arguable be the game that on its own, keeps the board gaming hobby alive.

In Magic, you take on the role of a wizard who is trying to bring your opponents life down to zero. This is the main path to victory but there are others such as getting rid of all their cards, playing certain cards or giving them poison counters. To achieve this goal, you will use your cards to cast spells and summon creatures. You can then use these creatures and command them to attack or defend attacks from your opponent. Each game can take an average time of 10-60 minutes to play. There are also many formats that you can play that range from 2-infiate number of players but it is normal for no more then about six players.

In Magic, there are five different colors that represent the world. White for Plains, Black for Swamps, Red for Mountains, Blue for Islands and Green for Forests. Each color represents a certain type of magic. White is holy, healing and honor. Black is death, destruction and evil. Red is fire, mountain creatures and spells that deal direct damage. Blue is control, sea creatures and creativity. Green is Forest creatures, healing and spells that help your creatures get stronger.

To play, you will choose what cards you want to use in your deck before you face your opponent(s). You may choose to use one color or all the colors in your deck. It is typical that one, two or three colors are in your deck and I would say most decks are two colors. You will then shuffle your deck so it is random and draw seven cards from the top.

To play your spells or creatures you will need to create mana. This typically comes from your lands. Your lands are generally what was listed above such as Plains, Swamps, Mountains, Islands or Forests. Lands are free to play and you will want to put those into your deck. However, you can only play one land a turn so your more powerful creatures and spells will not be able to come out until later in the game. If, for example, you wanted to cast a creature that you had in your hand that cost four mana, you might wait till turn four. Hopefully you were able to play a land on each of your turns. Then you will turn your four lands sidewards. This is called Tap. Tap means to turn a card from right side to sideways indicating that it is being used or spent. In Magic, at the beginning of your turn you will Untap your cards that are tapped so you can use their abilities again. Tapping something that first came out in Magic and since they copyrighted the term, other games have to use a different term.

Creatures are a normal way of reducing your opponent(s) life total down to zero so you will most likely want to put some of those in your deck. After you generate enough mana to cast a creature, they will stay in play until they are destroyed. You will then be able to command your creature to attack one of your opponents or stay and defend so that you will avoid taking damage. Everyone each typically starts out with 20 life points.

This was a basic overview of Magic. I say typically a lot here because it is not always the case. In Magic, rules were created so that cards can be innovative and break these rules. I am grateful for Magic as it got me into world of modern gaming. It is an amazing game that has lots of depth, great art, replay ability and strategy. It is also a game that can be expensive and was the reason I went into what I would call my dark ages of gaming. I’m not going to go into that right now but I would say I like the game.

As I said Magic can be expensive. I know people who have invested thousands of dollars into this game. Since it is collectible, you don’t know what you may get in one booster pack. Some people try to collect one of each card in a set and some try to get four as you can possibly have up to four copies of the same card in your deck. There are also cards that are not printed as much called rares and even mythic rares. There are four sets that come out each year and each set can have around 250 cards. This has been going on for the past 20 years. This means that there are a lot of cards.

Moving on, there are different formats or ways to play Magic. Some popular formats are Commander, Draft, Standard and Sealed. I have played them all and my favorite is Sealed. Sealed can be expensive as you are suppose to purchase new cards every time. To play sealed you will need six booster packs. Each pack cost about $4. You will then create your deck with these cards and adding any amount of land in addition. You will mainly play one on one or duels best two out of three playing someone else who opened the same types of booster packs. I enjoy this format and is the only form of Magic I have been playing recently as it puts everyone on a somewhat level playing field and it is your skill that you use to beat your opponents.