You can never win with this game, I swear.
Your choices are:
>Standard
You spend around $200-$500 on a deck that rotates in about a year, and depending on how reliant your deck was on that rotating set, you might have to buy a whole new deck and repeat the cycle.
>Modern
Drop about $1000-$2000 on a deck that doesn't rotate, but since Wizards wants "muh diversity" in the format, your deck's central engine could be hit with the banhammer and now you either pick up the pieces and play a worse deck or just up and buy a new one.
In addition, Wizards be damned if their hot new standard set fundamentally breaks the format, and will gladly let four months' worth of tournaments devolve into the same broken deck being mirror matched before they ban the problem.
>Eldrazi
>Legacy
Spend $2000-$3000 on a deck and question why you even spent that much to play in a format that gets criminally underrated attention from Wizards compared to Modern or Standard.
>Vintage
Take out a mortgage for your house to spend $10,000-$20,000 on cardboard to play a card game in a format that receives even less attention than Legacy does.
>Pauper
Spend about $50-$100 on a deck of common cards, but good luck finding a game of paper magic and receiving Legacy levels of attention from Wizards.
>>47788288
Cheer up sport boy howdy do I have a solution you can jam right up there.
>Casual Magic
Now hold your horses soldier I got to list off the pros and cons before you bust a nut in gratitude.
>Spend any amount of money you want
You got cards? You can play Casual. Hell you don't even need cards so long as you're fair about proxies. This is all possible because you can ...
>Have any kind of powerlevel you want
All you do is have a gay old chat with the fellas you want to be playing with and Bob's uncle fucks. Even better, you're ...
>Always going to get support from Wizards
Alls fair from ever till forever so long as your being fair with your playgroup, which brings me to my final point ...
>Being a top cunt is up to you and your mates
Rocket science incoming; If you be good and they be good things are gonna be good. If someone acts the mickey then deck them in the face.
Casual rewards not being a shit cunt, all in all.
>>47788288
Because wizards care more about making other people rich than having more people playing their game
>>47788787
>guy complains about competitive magic formats
>hurr just play casual dood don't worry about competitive
>>47788288
>>47789252
Most players don't care about competitive magic at all, or at most they care at the FNM level.
You do not matter.
When was the last time you even bought something that didn't come straight from the secondary market?
>>47788288
Or you can stop playing this shitty hearthstone copy
>>47788288
You choose Modern as your format.
You go Mono-G Stompy, paying fuckall for a bunch of basic lands, commons and uncommons with the occasional rare.
You practise and practise before breaking it out at every event you can.
You realise that you have a Counterspell costing G against any targeted spell or ability used by the opponent, and that you can pay an extra G to pump the target instead of it dying. You realise that Aspect of Hydra is an easy +5+5 for G even with a mediocre board. You realise that you have builtin gy hate with Scavenging Ooze. You realise that your dudes can get huge with trample out of nowhere and your Strangleroot Geists can hang around providing Devotion even after a board wipe. You realise that Leatherback Baloth is your bro and that he will always be at your side when you need shit crushed.
When you steamroll another competitive player's £1000 deck you laugh and shrug your shoulders. When you lose to another competitive player's £1000 deck you laugh and shrug your shoulders. When you have a close, tight game of bluff and tense counterbluff you laugh and shake hands.
You rinse and repeat and have fun with your minimal investment, and you chuckle to yourself when you see threads on /tg/ complaining about the price of Magic.
>>47788787
>Always going to get support from Wizards
Support being bullshit like Consecrated Sphinx (fuck you, Wizards), Emblems you can get immediately, Enter the Infinite, and other effects that completely destroy longer games (in ways that cannot be prevented or resolved other than by playing unfun things like counter decks, large-scale hand destruction, instant loss, etc)? Yes, power level is determined by your play group, but when you're playing high-power cards it's hard to come to an agreement as to which cards are broken enough to not be allowed. Wizards is increasingly printing cards with the idea that 'at X point you've already won the game anyways', completely ignoring slower casual formats.
>>47788288
Play draft. You get a fresh experience every time, and you don't have to worry about someone else winning because they can spend more money than you.
>>47789822
>my favorite casual game was a five player game
>someone exhumed a consecrated sphinx turn 4
>I mirrorweaved it on the next upkeep
>>47790533
Yeah, it's fun for once. But when the creature enters play regularly, the 'kill it now or everybody loses' aspect becomes a lot less fun. Most bombs allow you to react, or at least limit the damage caused by it (i.e., killing a Primeval Titan before the player's next turn keeps the acceleration/land tutoring to 2 lands). But in the case of Consecrated Sphinx, if you're in a 5 player game, you're sitting to the right of the Sphinx player and you only have sorcery speed removal for it (or you were just tapped out until then), the player has already drawn 8 cards (6 cards if just tapped out) by the time you remove it and everything's gone to hell already. Even if the next player can immediately remove it on their next turn, it still replaced itself with two cards (in addition to costing a kill spell to remove).
The only way not to lose to Consecrated Sphinx is either to counter it or to happen to have enough mana left open, plus a kill spell, to remove it before the next player's turn.
Wizards is even specifically making broken cards for multiplayer. Take Tempt With Discovery, for example - the text says 'Tempting offer', but in truth it's more 'You're fucked either way because someone is going to do this, so either you get the short end of the stick or this guy tutors for six lands (non-basic) that all enter play untapped', particularly in non-free-for-all formats, where the player's direct enemy is fucked the hardest of all and the others aren't as fucked and therefore will always join in.
The Problem is that Magic is just become shitty over the years.
Compare Magic to some modern TCG like AGOT, NETRUNER, lord of rings lcg, Spoils etc. they all fixed the elementary issue of loseing of ressource issues.
This is the greates Problem of Magic .
>>47789822
>Counterspell
>Unfun
Scrubs
>>47790812
>if you can't interact with a seven drop it's crazy busted
okay? even if the sphinx had come down on turn 7 and I had been tapped out to his right I could have made the same play on his upkeep and had almost the exact same experience. yes, splashy effects are gamebreakig when you have no way to interact with them. that's why you should play ways to interact.
>Wizards is even specifically making broken cards for multiplayer. Take Tempt With Discovery
tempt with discovery isn't broken. there are two situations where ANYplayer says yes:
1) an inexperienced player takes the bait.
2) a desperate player is so mana screwed he's willing to give you the goods
the second rarely happens at all, and the first happens once per player. I know, i play tenpt with discovery. 4 mana to put a land into play is not broken.
You should stop playing Magic: The Gathering and play any of the better modern card games. Collectible cardgames are a thing of the past. Specially such an outdated game like magic.
>competitive
ew
>>47791521
Counterspells are not necessarily unfun. The occasional counterspell is fine, as are counterspells with special effects (particularly spelljacking). But having too many of these cards pushes you towards having a counter deck: a deck always at the ready to counter any particularly big threats. That just isn't fun in casual.
>>47791858
>yes, splashy effects are gamebreakig when you have no way to interact with them. that's why you should play ways to interact.
The problem is that the effects on Consecrated Sphinx linger for a very long time after the Sphinx is zapped, and the effect is huge enough that that alone can win a player the game. (For context, Progenitus regularly hits the table here and is no problem because once you get rid of it, the problem is gone.)
>>47788288
>Standard
Spend $200-$500 on a deck, learn the deck, git gud, win with deck, easily make your $2-500 back over the course of rotation
>Modern
Drop about $1-2000 on a deck, git gud, win a lot with your deck, make close to (if not as much) as much as you spent on it, use dorrah to supplement new deck if it gets banned
>Legacy
Nah you're right
>Vintage
Super correct
tl;dr git gud or play draft
>>47791858
>there are two situations where ANYplayer says yes:
>1) an inexperienced player takes the bait.
>2) a desperate player is so mana screwed he's willing to give you the goods
>the second rarely happens at all, and the first happens once per player.
I'm the noobiest player in my group, and I've been playing since the original Mirrodin (2003). Most of them have been playing weekly since at least Tempest (1997). Trust me, my group is not inexperienced. And every time Tempt With Discovery is played, everybody joins in.
The problem is threefold:
1) In non-free-for-all formats, one player is screwed extra hard while it's less of a problem for the rest. We play 'attack left', which means that the player on the caster's left will be facing high-mana cost attackers, often with effect lands to back them up (Karakas is a popular choice, as is Vault of the Archangel if you have a blocker that survives strong hits). Our decks are powerful enough to generally survive this, but it severely cripples the player next to the caster. If the player doesn't survive, generally it takes long enough that the advantage from the mana acceleration has become less relevant. (By the time you hit six mana and have enough of your colors, you'll be able to defend yourself against bombs without too much issue, but before that it's brutal.) The main deterrent for other players is preventing the caster from getting too much advantage, but...
2) We're all playing powerful lands. People aren't going to pass up on fetching Karakas from their highlander 300+-card deck for free, among other options. Yes, you're giving another player an advantage, but you're also getting a huge advantage. Ravnica bouncelands are also a popular choice because they're so good for the extra mana and for mana fixing. Other options are lands you can sacrifice creatures to for combos, etc. Our incentive for joining is greatly increased compared to your average EDH player.
>>47792732 (continued)
3) Due to the high power level and variety of cards in our meta, we play removal for every kind of threat. This includes obnoxious lands (my abuse of Glacial Chasm may have contributed to this, though Volrath's Stronghold and Reliquary Tower are also cards you just have to remove occasionally). As such, we don't panic when powerful effect lands enter the battlefield; should they be a huge threat, we can remove them when they become relevant. This greatly discourages refraining from joining in with Tempt With Discovery.
To reiterate my earlier statement, you're fucked either way because someone is going to do this. Someone will need his Karakas. Someone will plain not care about the advantage they're giving the caster. Your only option is to cripple yourself further (relative to other players) to make the spell decrease in power slightly (now he can tutor for only 4 lands instead of 5, totally going to save my ass). The only rational choice given the circumstances is to join in. Problem #1 is not even necessary as long as the power level is high enough to cause problem #2 and #3. And casual is specifically the place where tons of high-power cards are tossed around with complete disregard to competitive viability; you just need people in your playgroup that own a large variety of cards.
>>47788288
>he thinks limited isn't competitive.
I don't know what you're smoking, but I've never spent more than $100 on any standard deck and yet I manage to win a majority of my standard matches against $500~ competetive decks.
>>47792732
>1) In non-free-for-all formats, one player is screwed extra hard while it's less of a problem for the rest.
I'll grant you this, but every card can't be built for every format, it's just impractical. moreover, if attack left screws over the player immediately to the tempt with discovery player's left, and that player dies, it has still screwed the next player in line, and it was still a bad idea for them to take the bait.
>2) We're all playing powerful lands.
so why are you volunteering to give one guy more of them? this is a misplay, period. I don't care if you're champing at the bit to get your karakas, if you know the guy who played it is just as eager to get lands that are just as bad, you are making a mistake by joining in. period. maybe saying only inexperienced players do this was inaccurate, BAD players take the bait, and it should only happen once per player. you're telling me your entire playgroup refuses to learn a lesson.
>3) Due to the high power level and variety of cards in our meta, we play removal for every kind of threat.
so you have answers for everything, therefore a spell that gives a player things, which you can answer, is broken? I don't even get how this is a point in the argument. either tempt with discovery gives a player an overwhelming advantage and is broken, or does not, and is not. unless your entire playgroup thinks "ha, I can answer one stupid land, so it's no problem if he gets six" in which case, see above re: bad players.
>>47793404
The problem is that these lands enter play on turn four, resulting in crazy stuff being cast on turns 5 and 6. We can answer every threat, but we can't do it in turn four ('destroy/otherwise remove target permanent' spells outside of BW tend to cost 6 or 7 mana, and most boardwipes also start at 6 (with W and B getting them at 4; some exceptions like Nevdisk exist but they all have disadvantages)). But indeed, we tend to be able to still answer the threat - at the cost of enough resources that it cripples the defending player for a long time.
And yes, six lands is no problem in the late game. Terastodon cleans up three of them, reanimate it (for example with Corpse Dance) to get the other three, should it be necessary. (In practice, everybody learns to not have too many threats on the board at the same time unless they're confident enough, as this will turn all players against you; players will cooperate to break up overly powerful board states. In this example, the Terastodon is swiftly removed from the graveyard by whoever has graveyard removal once we learn the player has Corpse Dance in hand.)
>>47788288
If you're going to play competitively, play limited formats or don't bother.
But seriously?
>2016
>Still playing a game that was regarded as obsolete by it's designer as soon at it was released
>This happened more than 20 years ago
Anyone still playing this garbage is fucked in the head. It wasn't even good compared to the competition in the 90's.
>>47793847
I agree. Yugioh is fucking retarded.
In all seriousness, your allegations have no value beyond personal opinions since all the evidence shows that magic is a good game (evidence being the millions. Of booster packs that get sold of every set).
>>47793916
>>47793921
>hurr appeal to majority
Get rekt.
>>47793946
>Over a billion magic cards sold
Dude, suggest any card game and I'll list five legitimate reasons why it's shit. Doesn't stop people from playing it.
>>47793975
Moving goalposts.
You're really bad at this.
>Doesn't stop people from playing it.
But it should.
It's not a good game, never was, never will be. Almost every single card game developed since 1993 is strictly better.
>>47788288
>Spend about $50-$100 on a deck of common cards,
Where are you getting cards. I've never spent more then $10.
>>47789822
>Consecrated Sphinx
Now I want to build a deck with it, that gives it to an opponent and then forces them to draw through their entire library.
>>47794024
And if that is correct, shouldn't nobody be playing it? The only way people would be playing it is if *gasp* you're wrong!
>>47794045
Agreed. Even a play set of the most expensive commons like lightning bolt only add about $12 to a deck.
>>47794067
Yeah. 4-player game you could give it to them and then cast diminishing returns.
>>47794068
More argumentum ad populum.
That's not how it works.
Most people spend most of their time doing things that are objectively stupid & wrong.
The fact that the ONLY (fallacious) argument you can make in favor of the game is that Everybody Else Is Doing It.
It has NO INTRINSIC MERIT as a game. None. Nothing. Nadda. Zip.
Just downloaded Xmages. Its a clunky shit but I guess I can have fun in this shit.
Where can I find my deck I had when I played back in 2002? I had a green insect deck with a queen something that constantly grew token things and stuff. I loved it.
Is that deck viable now?
I wish this game had a better UI like the yugi games
>>47791179
Agot is fucking amazing, but the timeline reboot and slow release schedule killed my interest.
>>47794151
And why is that? It has all the parts of a good game.
>Building your own deck with dozens of different archetypes and styles to base around, and your deck could be completely different than anything you've made before.
>Different formats for different kinds of budgets and play styles
>Casual is the largest format, and play groups often have their own "house rules" on cards or budgets to have everyone on the same field
>Competetive and casual are both fun for different people, not forcing everyone to play one style.
>Over 23,000 unique cards in its history allows for functionally infinite deck possibilities.
>Opening booster packs are addictive, and building casual brews around that one bulk rare you drew is fun as hell
>Decent decks for standard cost under $50 and can be "upgraded" by fixing mana supply and replacing cards with more effective but more expensive cards.
>Seriously, find a play group and you can go for years only buying boosters for cards.
>>47794227
Also forgot
>Power creep is significantly slower than other tcgs (I'm looking at you yugioh) and older cards are often BETTER than any current card.
>>47794227
>>47794254
Can't help but notice that none of your bullet points have anything whatsoever to do with actually playing the game, or with the things that make a game "good" or "bad".
You seem to be really hung up on the (mistaken) idea that a good community = good game.
>>47794318
>Unique dynamic where cards actually cost something, giving a dynamic between mana power and spell power
>Except for very specific circumstances, you can't T1-2 kill someone before they can play the game.
>Abilities and the magic called "the stack" add a whole level of strategic planning to every move, meaning SKILL actually has a lot of effect on whether someone wins or loses
>The many key abilities of creatures, instants, sorceries, enchantments, artifacts, and lands mix up each game so as to make each game an enjoyable battle.
>Playing your opponent is as big of a part of magic as playing against their cards.
>>47794392
>other games do all of these better, while fixing the many problems in MtG's basic design
Which is why MtG is shit.
>>47794392
>You choose who attacks, not who attacks what. This lets the defending player have a large part in each combat phase instead of the common TCG property that the attacker gets to pinpoint select each of his targets and deals out the damage without input from the defending player.
>>47794454
>I insult with no evdence whatsoever. This makes my non-existent card game superior!
>
>>47794454
>Other games do this better
>I summon and special summon fifty times this turn and counter/discard your entire field and swing for lethal damage on my first turn! Isn't this fun?
>>47793921
>Yu gi oh outsells magic
>>47788288
>You spend around $200-$500 on a deck
No no I don't, I spend maybe $45 on a deck that gets me to 3rd or second place.
>>47794515
>Yugioh releases its most powerful set ever, including ways to reliably special summon thirty times on the first turn.
>>47794527
Agreed. The only people spending $500 on deck are the ones with 3 basic lands in the deck along with triple copies of two different Planeswalkers and a legendary mythic staple or two.
>>47794535
>Hurr durr I don't know what arguments to say but special summon
You don't play the game, have your (You) and go buy playsets of cards at 15k dollars while chinamen print them for 50 cents
>>47794581
Oh I see. You're retarded and thinks everyone who plays magic shills out absurd amounts of money for 20 year old cards when nearly (99.8%) nobody who plays magic does that.
>>47788288
Magic has been terrible ever since Planeswalkers became a thing.
I remember when Magic was about monsters fighting each other, not superheroes doing superhero things.
>>47794682
Funny thing is, Planeswalkers almost always get killed within a turn or two of them being summoned. I cannot remember when a planeswalker has ever gotten their ult off.
>>47794392
>>47794460
>>47794475
>>47794499
Ypu know this is not a yu gi oh vs magic thread right? Examples of better games have been given already, look into those instead of shittalking yu gi oh nobody is defending anyway.
>>47794915
Actually, you haven't given ANY examples of other games. Just "Magic is bad, play something else."
>>47794068
Hello "argues in bad faith?"
I guess you got tired sucking 3.PF's dick today?
Actually you can win in all of those formats OP I don't understand your point
I'm the most casual player in the world but I pulled a card from a booster so expensive that my LGS will not take it--they still have a foil Wasteland pulled like a year ago they bought which is still sitting there. It's like that but twice as expensive. Where can I offload this to afford to make three to five copies of my 2spooky spirit deck? How does one sell a magic card? I've never sold any I just hoarded them.
I don't want to use good cards so I want to get rid of this guy and I don't know where to ask.
>>47791179
>>47794967
I am not the one you have been talking to,but like i said examples are in the thread already. If you want my personal opinion the spoils is particularly fun, but each one has its peculiarities and i guess you could prefer some other one(you did know some of these games right? You are not THAT ignorant.)
The problem is that there's money to be made. And money always distracts from good anything.
I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to make money. The issue is creating value out of nothing. Take foils for example, functionally indistinguishable, but at least 200% more expensive.
This is the danger of making a video game a "sport" or making Magic "competitive" - at some point the drive to make money overtakes the incentive to improve gameplay or convenience. In the case of video games instead of balancing the game they'll just fuck up the metagame just to make the season feel fresh (really nothing wrong with that except it takes focus away from fixing fucking bugs) and in the case of Magic it means supporting the secondary market by limiting reprints at the cost of accessibility.
Because ultimately, Wizards needs to sell product, and it does well for them to support the huge stores that host GP events, buy like $50,000 worth of Sealed product to sell per set. And they'll never flood a box of sealed product with secondary market value because that just hurts the people who buy cards to sell.
>>47794709
Planeswalkers often read, "Get 2-3 cards worth of value, gain X life".
They're filthy cards. They warp the game around them. You're right that the ultimate is irrelevant because the real issue is the fact that the damn things are just going to generate endless value if left unchecked all the while gaining the owner some pseudo life by eating combat damage.
>>47794067
Won't work. It's a may effect.
>>47789820
My brother of Afro American descent. I love my stompy deck so much and I am glad there are others who also get as much enjoyment out of it as I do
>>47788288
You win by being WotC or a hoarding oldfag.
I sold my Oath deck last year, now I have a Boston Whaler, a commercial saltwater fishing license and have bough back three pieces of P9 with tuna money.
A better investment than fucking college.
>>47795220
Yeah. None of those games have any intrisic value at all.
>>47795436
Yes. And they're easily taken out by almost any spell or instant that exiles permanents or damages a player.
>>47798939
>Every deck costs thousands of dollars
Let this meme die.
>Why are Competetive TCG formats so shit?
Fixed
It's because in Competetive you HAVE to take every advantage you can.
>>47793847
>regarded as obsolete by it's designer as soon at it was released
[citation needed]
OP you forgot the actual best format, Noble.
The cardpool of Legacy at the price of Pauper.
>>47788288
I don't think the problem is competitive TCG, I think being competitive at a TCG just not for everyone.
Sure it is bad value to buy into a standard deck that is $200-$300, and play it once a month at an FNM or something. But if you buy into the deck and play it at most FNMs each month, and go to a PPTQ, a GPT, or an SCG IQ every few weeks, then that's where you get your money's worth. You get better at the game, and up your chances at doing well at those events, getting into top 8, and making your money back and more.
Same with modern really. If you look, there are events in the area. At least in my area there's at least one event a week. Bigger tournaments weekly too if you're willing to make more than a half hour drive. You don't even have to drop the full amount on the deck at first. Plenty of budget options that work, and do well. Then use your winnings to build the deck you want to. It took me 2 years to make an actual modern deck, and that was with playing a tier 2.5 deck for the entire time.
Not gonna argue with legacy and vintage because yeah no one really plays too much.
You definitely get your money's worth in a hobby though. There aren't many hobbies that are free, barring just walking or adventuring around your house. You spend the time to do competitive TCG, and eventually you'll start doing good at events and making money.
Draft is the only game worth playing.
>>47802424
>Format entirely devoted to random chance and screwing one person over for multiple hours
Nah, I'd rather go with sealed.
Is xMages any good?
>>47788288
Because MTG is pay2win.
>>47804069
>Pay2play2learn2git gud
Fixed
