Magic: The Gathering

[Grunker]

Couldn't they do something like take a core set or three and make a game with all those cards? Or would that cost too much M:TGO money?

Duels is constructed to be its own self-contained world. It's not that it would cost MTGO money (I doubt there's much competition between the products), it's that all the cards are designed specifically to interact in the same environment. It's its own little pseudo-Standard format.

The people posting in this thread just isn't the target audience here. What would be awesome for us is a new Shandalar.

 

[Jaedar]

I actually got started with magic with.... duels 2013 I think. I can tell you though, it probably wouldn't have happened if not for the puzzle things, those were what sold me on the game, figuring out how to resolve complex board states. If you want to play kiddie standard, I guess duels 2015 might actually be the best, but for me, it seems to mostly be....shit. Sure you can build your own deck, but its from a very limited supply of cards, and from what I looked at it, there's no really fun interactions or crazy stuff going on. Compare to earlier duels where some of the decks were very strong and let you do all sorts of crazy stuff.

Oh and duels 15 doesn't have puzzles, so that's why its shit.


Edit: I guess what I mean is that if you want to play real magic, you should play real magic, be it with paper or mtgo. If you want to learn the game and have fun while doing so, you should play an earlier version of duels.

 

[Telemetry]

Totally. It's not like Magic is more popular and making more money than ever in the history of the game.

I used the term business in a wrong way, sorry. I looked at it from a player's perspective. Magic is doing well, sure, but it doesn't make all their decisions appealing to a fairly experienced player.

If you're actually interested and not just asking rhetorical questions, I recommend you listen to Marshall Sutcliffe's interview of Jon Loucks after he stopped working for Wizards. As with anything, there exists a good explanation for why MTGO is such a shitty product, and it has a lot to do with the old decision to do internal development. As long as that remains the case, it probably won't change, and Hasbro isn't likely to allow Wizards to outsource the client now that they just financed a new one.

I just listened to the relevant parts. Thank you for suggesting this, it really clarifies a few things. mtgo is still retarded though and could have been done in a manner that benefits both parties like, as you said, outsourcing. But I get that it ain't happening. Pity.

 

[Grunker]

but it doesn't make all their decisions appealing to a fairly experienced player.

I agree completely. Overall, Wizards seem to be betting on all horses (inexperienced, fairly experienced, very experienced), and well, as long as that makes them a crapton of cash I can't say I blame 'em

I just listened to the relevant parts. Thank you for suggesting this, it really clarifies a few things. mtgo is still retarded though and could have been done in a manner that benefits both parties like, as you said, outsourcing. But I get that it ain't happening. Pity.

Anybody wanting to know about the mess that is MTGO should listen to that interview. It's disheartening and grim, but also makes you understand what the fuck went on.

 

[Ulminati]

Anyway, the main complaints people had about MTG2015 (premiums + locked in 1 deck) have been a non-issue since the expansion half a year ago. All the people (except Grunker and jaedar) I talked with said M2015 was the least shitty of the planeswalkers. So my point stands.

Sure you can build your own deck, but its from a very limited supply of cards, and from what I looked at it, there's no really fun interactions or crazy stuff going on

Angelic Accord, Sanguine bond, Ajani's Pridemate, Vizkopa Guildmage, Rhox Faithmender, Blood Tribute, Radiant fountain

Pad it out with whatever lifelink/heal spells you like to combo off of the rest of them. I recommend 4x Child of night. Since if you have a vampire on the board and sanguine bond active, Blood Tribute becomes an instakill spell regardless of your opponents life. Wandering Missionary is also good because he'll proc your angelic accords without needing a Rhox faithmender like fountains/child of night.

And that's just off the top of my head. I have a pretty amazing bounce deck too and a lolbroken token spam deck.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Personally, I think it's a disgrace that they haven't made a modern version of Shandalar

Hear, hear. I still hope for an open world MtG game where you slowly build your deck and challenge progressively more difficult enemies. Today they could make it with conspiracies, schemes and tons of other crazy shit. I mean, I get why they don't want to make a good MtG game with multiplayer, but why not at least try making a competent SP game?

 

[Grunker]

Hear, hear. I still hope for an open world MtG game where you slowly build your deck and challenge progressively more difficult enemies. Today they could make it with conspiracies, schemes and tons of other crazy shit. I mean, I get why they don't want to make a good MtG game with multiplayer, but why not at least try making a competent SP game?

Yeah, Shandalar would in no way compete with other Magic products. I suspect the short answer is that it's a lot of work, with some risk, for less pay-off. Duels is fairly simple to make from a technical perspective (just demands good game design, which is cheaper than other educated work), and it makes tons of money.

 

[Jaedar]

A lifegain deck eh? Let me remind you one of the previous duels game had this:

and

in a lifegain deck(and that's probably not all). Also it's funny how a lifegain deck is your primary example of "fun interactions".

The thing is, we seem to want different things from duels. I want decent SP stuff, because playing multiplayer magic via the internet with a limited cardpool doesn't really appeal to me(I'll play on cockatrice any day of the week instead). And in terms of competing with MTGO, duels might very well be "the best". That's not what I want though and because of this I think duels2015 is the worst of them. It has no interesting SP content what so ever.

 

[Shadenuat]

So do you have to go through boring tutorial in 2015 until they let you actually play or is there a way to cheat around it? What a pathetic UI and tutorial itself.

I still remember tutorial from Shandalar. Best tutorial in a game - ever. "I summon Black Knight" (whack whack whack) (Knight appears on the table)
oh god, it was so cheesy and soooo good.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Ok so:

How does the instant and sorcery's have lifelink ability function?

I realize that ability isn't the reason to play soulfire grand master because his other ability and casting cost is nice on it's own, but I'm trying to understand the first ability better.

I think it means when you cast a creature with flash (instant ?) it has lifelink, not sure about sorcery. Maybe if you use a sorcery to put token creatures on the battlefield they get lifelink?

 

[procrastinator]

It means that Lightning Bolts and Shocks will gain you life.

702.15b Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller, or its owner if it has no controller, to gain that much life (in addition to any other results that damage causes)

 

[Ranselknulf]

Ahh, ok.

 

[Jaesun]

There is a list here: http://wizards.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2293/=2

It has all the terminology of what cards have, and explains it pretty well. I have this page open at all times when playing MTGO, since some of these terms I still don't know what they do.

 

[Ulminati]

Had my first FRF draft yesterday. We ran FRF-FRF-KTK because everyone wanted to see the new cards. General consensus was to keep it 2xKTK 1xFRF as they recommend going forward. The FRF cards had some good trick cards but needed KTK cards to combo properly off of.

I ended up going whit with a red splash. First 2-color deck of the KTK block for me. For th elongest time it looked like I might be going monowhite, but I managed to snag some good red cards. I ended up going 2-2. Could've been 4-0, but I fucked up a discard in the first match and got mana screwed in the second (3 lands on my starting hand, 3 lands on board in turn 12. Both games).

This was the definite high point of my deck:

I comboed her off of 3 copies of these:

Plus a smattering of other power 2 creatures. I also had some feats of resistance, a valorous stance, 2 sand blasts (I did very well by those) and some other combat tricks to keep her alive. I also used a jeering insticator and an act of treason (lel) to grab hold of enemy problem creatures and killing them with this:

My deck was sorely lacking in bombs to actually win the game, but I did a decent job of whittlign away at people. Once I had bolstered my dudes with repeated killing of skycaptains, I used these guys to get past the other guys defenses:

All in all there's some really fun combos in FRF. Bolster (especially in an Abzan deck) was utterly broken in the decks that ran it yesterday. I didn't get to play with manifest yet, but it seems like a very solid way to get your dudes in play. Especially if you run a creature-heavy deck and use the 3-mana manifest auras that add extra abilities to the manifestation. It could be an exception to the conventional logic that Auras are a trap. The FRF auras seem to be pretty strong for what they cost.

 

[Jaedar]

Lightform and Cloudform are insane. A 2/2 flier for three with lifelink/hexproof is already very good in limited. And if you flip a larger creature its insane.

I am not as sure about rageform, seems you'd need to flip something decent on it(but then it is similarly insane).

It's also worth mentioning that the reason they're an exception is that the biggest issue with auras(can get 2 for 1'd easily) doesn't apply to them since they create a new creature to enchant.

I drafted frf once so far, first 2 packs I was basically monoblue with a green splash, then I added a white and red splash. Wound up with a pretty bad deck, but it was super fun to play. 2x jeskai ascendency ftl!

 

[Ulminati]

Dromoka the eternal was the bane of my existence yesterday. Opponent got him down two games in a row.

 

[Caim]

So the dragons have returned to Tarkir. Who'd have thought.

 

[Jaedar]

So the dragons have returned to Tarkir. Who'd have thought.

Bro don't you know fate reforged is set in the past? The dragons ain't dead yet.

 

[Jaesun]

Is that new series out now?

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Dromoka the eternal was the bane of my existence yesterday. Opponent got him down two games in a row.

Had that at the prerelease. Sure, this is a bomb, but believe me, it's not half as infuriating as the UB Dragon with hexproof, it was the only match I lost, both times to the fucking UB dragon. One time I had a kill shot, sandblast and valorous stance in hand, but no, we must have bombs with hexproof now. You can't even double or triple block that thing because of -1/-1 for your creatures, you either must kill them before it comes into play or have your own dragon.

 

[Keldryn]

The game has certainly changed since I used to play it regularly back in university. I was always more of a casual or "kitchen table" player, as I loved building decks with interesting cards and I really enjoyed games that went on long enough for players to cast their big spells.

And I still fondly remember my best opening turn ever:

Swamp -> Dark Ritual -> Dark Ritual -> Sengir Vampire

The look of "oh shit" on my opponent's face was priceless. I'm sure competitive players would sneer at the "casual newbness" of that opening turn, but I've never been willing to make the financial investment necessary to buy the cards that allow for truly degenerate opening turns. The most expensive card that I ever owned was an Icy Manipulator from the Beta printing (around $40 at that time), and the most I ever paid for a single was $10 (Royal Assassin from Revised Edition).

I wish I hadn't sold off all of my original cards back around 2000 or 2001. Most of my cards were from Revised, Antiquities, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Ice Age, and Alliances, so I never had a shot at any of the Power Nine, but I did have 8 or 10 of the original dual lands from Beta, Unlimited, and Revised that go for a hell of a lot more than they did when I sold my collection.

I bought a couple of prebuilt Mirrodin/Fifth Dawn decks about ten years ago so that my wife and I could play against each other, and I got interested again in 2009 and purchased a fat pack of Magic 2010. Two decks didn't allow for much variety, and the Mirrodin cards were often rather fiddly for my wife's liking. Really liked the 2010 Core Set, as it reminded me of the Magic that I used to play during my prime years of '94-96. Ended up not playing with them much, what with our first child arriving a few months later. Suddenly got interested again a few weeks ago and I've bought a good number of 2015 Core boosters, a 2015 Core Deckbuilder's Toolkit (cards from 2015 and Theros block), and a few Khans boosters.

Now I just need to find more people to play Magic with. :-P

 

[Phage]

The game has certainly changed since I used to play it regularly back in university. I was always more of a casual or "kitchen table" player, as I loved building decks with interesting cards and I really enjoyed games that went on long enough for players to cast their big spells.

And I still fondly remember my best opening turn ever:

Swamp -> Dark Ritual -> Dark Ritual -> Sengir Vampire

Man, even for old/casual play all I can think of is your opponent sitting there with a grin on his face as he casually taps a plains, Swords to Plowshares your vampire and gets a 3 for 1

 

[Dr Skeleton]

I wish I hadn't sold off all of my original cards back around 2000 or 2001. Most of my cards were from Revised, Antiquities, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Ice Age, and Alliances, so I never had a shot at any of the Power Nine, but I did have 8 or 10 of the original dual lands from Beta, Unlimited, and Revised that go for a hell of a lot more than they did when I sold my collection.

I used to have 4+ copies of Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Onslaught fetches and a lot more back when Extended was a thing. Not beta duals, obviously, but somehow after I sold almost everything and stopped playing for a few years many cards went 500% up in price. I came back with Innistrad and been only playing limited and casual since.

 

[Phage]

Dromoka the eternal was the bane of my existence yesterday. Opponent got him down two games in a row.

Had that at the prerelease. Sure, this is a bomb, but believe me, it's not half as infuriating as the UB Dragon with hexproof, it was the only match I lost, both times to the fucking UB dragon. One time I had a kill shot, sandblast and valorous stance in hand, but no, we must have bombs with hexproof now. You can't even double or triple block that thing because of -1/-1 for your creatures, you either must kill them before it comes into play or have your own dragon.

I haven't actually played the new format yet. Looks like it has all the flaws of the KTKx3 format, but now has actual unbeatable bombs.

k00l

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Dromoka the eternal was the bane of my existence yesterday. Opponent got him down two games in a row.

Had that at the prerelease. Sure, this is a bomb, but believe me, it's not half as infuriating as the UB Dragon with hexproof, it was the only match I lost, both times to the fucking UB dragon. One time I had a kill shot, sandblast and valorous stance in hand, but no, we must have bombs with hexproof now. You can't even double or triple block that thing because of -1/-1 for your creatures, you either must kill them before it comes into play or have your own dragon.

I haven't actually played the new format yet. Looks like it has all the flaws of the KTKx3 format, but now has actual unbeatable bombs.

k00l

I think it's just that one that has hexproof, didn't see anything else that would be too broken. Sieges are insane, but not unbeatable. When I played Dromoka, she often died before attacking or just after, there's plenty of removal. When she didn't I usually won in 2 swings, but that's just what happens when you can't answer a 5/5 dragon.