Judgement is out soon...anyone else care?

Not me..

A few years ago.. after the fifth straight expansion came out that made all the good cards from the expansions before illegal and completely screwed you if you didn't immediately go out and buy 20 boosters of it.. I got sick of all the money I was putting into it and sold my cards.

Actually, all of those cards are Type I legal, and still very usable in Type I tournaments...

Type II is different, it contains the two most recent blocks and the most recent base set.

But I don't put all that much into it. I'm happy with my 2 or 3 pretty-good decks I've built. Spent maybe $40 on it altogether, so not much.

Onslaught prerelease was last week. Anybody played on it, has anything to say about the new set?

I'd say it looks quite unusual and interesting. It seems Wizards decided to return us to the roots of Magic, i.e. creature battles. Also it seems that the storyline became a bit darker... lol

I see...


So they made these massive sums of cards at one time, and people paid fifty gazillion dollars for them, and then they made it so with the newer cards those cards would not be allowed, thereby making it so you would have to go out and buy fifty gazillion dollars worth of new cards so you can have another deck that you can use and stay "up to date".

Yeah.. like I'm going to do that.

It really depends on what your goal is as a player.

If you are just playing for fun, you may use any cards you wish and don't care too much about them being old and new. Anything you need you may trade for the cards you've allready got and don't plan to use.

If you are trying to be a competitive player, things change. There are different tournament formats you can play (Type 1, Type 2, Extended, etc.) Every format has it's rules for the cards that can be used.


Wizards of the Coast print the cards in the following pattern:

Every year in fall a new set of 350 different cards is released, then additional sets of 143 cards are released in winter and in spring (those 3 sets together are called a block). Once in two years a basic set of 350 previously printed cards is released.

Main Formats:

Type 2 or Standard: 2 last blocks and a last basic set are allowed. This format is good for newer players that can't get their hands on older cards and also for those players who don't have trouble getting new cards.

Extended: like Type 2, but on a larger scale. Rotation of cards happens once in 3 years. Last 4-6 blocks and basic sets released after the release of the oldest block are allowed in the format. This format is better for older players and it is also possible for newer players to get cards for it. There is a small list of cards that were overpowered because of the Research & Design team's mistake and are therefore banned from tournament play

Type 1: all cards are allowed. There is a list of overpowered cards, that are restricted to one copy per deck.

Type 1.5: same as Type 1, but the overpowered cards are banned instead of being restricted.

Limited Formats (Draft, Rochester Draft, Sealed Deck): this is a very fun way to buy new cards. Instead of just opening packs with random cards, you buy a certain number of those packs (usually about $10 worth), construct a deck from the cards you get and play with the deck against other players who made the deck in the same way. The big plus of such formats is, that to play in it you don't need to spend a lot of time and money to buy / trade for all the cards for deck like for other formats, and therefore a skilled player without the ability to spend a lot of money / time can win.


Basically, to stay in the game "up-to-date" you don't need to spend that much money. I rarely ever spend money on Magic outside of tournaments, I have more then one good deck for any type of tournament, and I allready won my good share of prizes. Most of the time you can trade your older cards / the cards you don't need for other cards and stay in game in this way.

And tournament play is damn fun

So... Magic the gathering has just become the money making overdone piece of crap thing, since they release new cards every single year?

reminds me of Final Fantasy...

*cough cough*

I guess you could say so, but there is enough changes made each year, for the game to stay interesting. So far I'd say their Research & Design team is doing a pretty good job. At least there is no other game that interested me for more then 2 years... And I have to say that every damn $ I payed was worth it, because I had tons of fun. And if I ever decide to quit, I can easily get my money back by selling my pretty big collection.

Sure they make lots of money, but so do good players. And who would actually release something that does not give money?

And don't you even dare to compare it to FF!

I just hate it when they overdo stuff like this.. constantly shoveling out new stuff, with just a few changes here and there, to make tons of more money.


It's.. disgusting.

With M:tG it is a bit different. It became something more then just a game. Tournament level M:tG can be compared to chess, with the differense that it actually changes over time and the amount of different situations possible on the board is MUCH higher, and therefore it doesn't get that boring over time. No other collectable card game came to this level yet.

And of course they are making money out of it. If nobody would, it wouldn't become better over time. And besides, I don't think players would be happy, if they finished releasing new cards...

i personally like five color tourney decks... work on the fly with no prior knowledge... evens things out a bit so that skill and luck play equally...

Yeah, five color is really nice. But not a lot of people play it here, because of the trouble getting old cards. Here we mostly stick to Type 2 and Extended and of course Drafts.

no no no... im talking sealed tourney decks...

In that case I prefer drafts, because they are less luck-based, maybe because I am a player with some experience allready. I just prefer it when the game is as skill-based as possible. In draft you still don't need to bring your own deck, but at least it's not that much depends on the cardpool you opened, because it is actually shared with other players on the table.

perhaps its just a preferance... in true combat skill is very important... but so is luck... while i realize these are usually only two wizards pairing off, i prefer melee which needs more luck

Yes, i guess this is a matter of preferense. In any format there is luck involved though, but in some it's minimized. Well, no wonder, Sealed Deck is often called Sealed Luck by players... Anyway, there is a Prerelease for Onslaught tomorrow in our city (I played one allready while I was in Hamburg last week), with the format of course being Sealed Deck... going to play there

i was playing an elf deck with seismic/groundskeeper/tradewinds... and i could never sucessfully pull off the combo cause the dude kept playing discs... i got shitcanned by a SINGLE llanowar elf... go fig

I had portal when it came out.. got a bunch of expansions.


One thing I never really understood, and still don't, is that mana burn crap... and then there were more and more and more and more and more rules being tacked on every month it seemed.. I turned around and first strike appeared, then that trample crap, and god knows what else.. it was confusing :p

But anywho.. I think it'd be neat if you guys would play a MtG game ON HERE... you know.. set up the decks irl, promise not to cheat, and then draw the cards and whatnot.

youd need to database all of your cards... then create shortcuts... too much work... besides, isnt there already a M:tG online game?

There is Magic Online, it is good.... but it is bad as well for following reason - you have to pay for the virtual cards the same amount of money as for real ones... that's stupid. I am playing it, but only because I got free $12 for beta-testing and being a good trader and a decent player I manage to stay alive there without paying a buck and playing lots of booster drafts. But for new players, I'd say better play the real cards.

Then there's Apprentice. That's a good program. I use it for testing quite often, because it's free and you got all the cards to construct the deck. The problem is, there is no rules control, like in Magic Online.