Mana Burned
Chapter: Season Three
Characters: Sam
There is no other way to say it: I am wading back into Magic: The Gathering.
I wish I could explain why but honestly, I cannot put my finger on any single reason for my need to play. Maybe it’s the folks in my Twitter feed excitedly talking about their decks, draft tournaments, and new sets. Maybe I miss the thrill of opening a new pack of cards. Ah, the smell of new cards….
Anyway, I am going to stick a toe in the water and check out the new Core set. I may play a few games and step back again or I may dive all the way in. I’m pretty excited to come back to the game as an “old timer”. It feels like I’m coming out of retirement.
COMMENTERS: MTG Chat. Bring it on to me. Where do I start if I want to get back in?
Well, they make a Deckbuilder’s Toolkit that comes with a bunch of random and semirandom cards that you can even get at Target. Don’t know how good it is but is a thought. Currently only MtG I play is Duel of the Planeswalkers on Xbox Live, which is affordable as f*** compared to other forms of Magic. I’m AlexIsAnAlien on there if you decide you want a game.
Seconded. The DBTC is the most efficient way to grab a load of staple common & uncommon cards for the block ahead. Strap on to that a couple of event decks (or Intro decks if you like the themes and lower prices better) and you are sorted.
I won’t have last yrs for a few weeks, but here is the list of last years kit:
http://snackplaylove.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/deck-builders-toolkit-2011-standard.html
I’m with you, in that I’ve just gotten back into MTG in the last year, after being out of it since around Ice Age.
The best thing I’ve seen so far is just the introduction of the prebuilt decks with each “block” every 3 months. It lets you sample what the themes are for that year, and gives you an actually working deck right from the start! Tossing in a booster pack, and making each deck only $13 is a bonus.
The Vs. Decks for $20 are the next best thing, two prebuilt decks designed for playing against each other. Let’s you get going right from the start.
actually the new intro-decks will come with two boosters starting with M13 and the event decks are also a good buy. competitive decks with sideboards
DON’T DO IT!!!!!
I’m a judge for the game and I think limited (draft/sealed) is the most cost effective way to get back into the game.
But everyone’s mileage varies.
I dunno, sometimes I get really nostalgic for MtG, then I talk to my friends who play currently and I’m reminded exactly why I sold off all my cards. When magazines started printing deck recipes, comic & card shops started saw profit in cash for singles over boosters, and people started selling preconstructed decks, the game started to lose that pioneering sense of discovery and adventure that came with opening a pack, having no idea what might be inside, and experimenting with it.
I gotta agree with the Duels. Yeah its kinda irritating to not have absolute control over your deck, but when you just can’t afford to keep up with the new sets Duels is enough to satisfy the itch.
Two words: ultra rares.
I loved magic when it was me and friends playing the duels of the planeswalkers on xbox live than hanging out at a buds house buying premade decks and a few boosters and seeing what we could do, and than one day my friend said the worst phrase i’ve ever heard “I found this deck build on the internet” and after that magical day mtg slowly became less and less fun. FNM was bad switched to a brand new hobby shop game was fun again till “i found this deck on the internet” so i just couldn’t bring myself to play anymore. But thats my experience with magic. alot of theorycrafting and optimal builds. Though not to hop off topic deckbuilding games are really fun tcg not as much IMHO
MTG?
Barren wastelands out here. I can’t find someone that’s willing to simply play. That term “found on internet” always spouts out their mouths. I honestly could care less if you found something on the internet. That’s not wit. That’s not one of the magic moments when your cards simply torch the opponent, or your opponent torches you.
I bought cards… played a little, and wound up giving up on finding a fun opponent. Gotta admit I’ll look for innistrad dual-face cards all the time. But that’s just a Ravenloft obsession I inherited from a good DM.
If you want to get into the casual part, get yourself a Commander deck to start out with.
If you want to get into standard tournaments, Event Decks are a great idea. These are fully-formed 60-card decks with 15-card sideboards, packed with pretty strong cards and combos. The Avacyn Restored Zombie deck is pretty strong, and can be turned into quite the powerhouse with a few extra cards (Blood Artist and Mortarpod for the most part).
Getting into Limited is the easiest to begin but also possibly the hardest to master. Sealed Deck is extremely luck-based, and Draft is a bit less so, but luck still plays a big part in what cards you get. This is especially true if someone pulls great rares in all of their packs.
No matter what, though, Sealed Deck is probably the best way to get to interact with as many new cards and mechanics as possible. You also usually have more time to build your deck, since you don’t spend any time actually drafting to get your cards.
I had a whole bunch of things that I was going to say, but Aetharion already said them all. Nuts.
Dude, bring your old-ass Homelands deck to GenCon. I’ll bring my ancient Mirage-era deck, and we’ll have a good old-fashioned brawl. Forget tournaments and deck builds.
I just recently got back into the game after about about 12 years away too, and I found that my old Rath Cycle stuff is still very competitive. I’ve taught a whole new generation that had never seen Slivers before to fear them.
I bought my two decks back in 1994. I last played the game in 1994. The cards have been collecting dust since then. I just couldn’t find anyone to play.
DON’T!!! It’s like getting back with an ex-girlfriend. It’s fun for a moment, bring back memories, then you remember why you quit but it’s too late.
If you really want to get back into MTG, do the pre-release tournament. Since “officially” nobody knows the card in the set, it’s mostly your deckbuilding experiance that will help you out.
The whole set list was “officially” spoiled as of last week. At their slowest Wizards guarantees every set will be fully spoiled by the night before prerelease weekend.
That said, prereleases really are the best way to jump back in since you get a wider selection of the player base.
See, in my time (I sound like ol’ geezzer saying this) there was leaks, but there was still a few cards that we didn’t knew about until the pre-release, hence the “” on “officially” 🙂
Oh good. So it’s not just me. I stopped playing magic a few years ago, and just started up again. These new blocking rules confuse me. I managed to totally exploit them once, but other than that, I get screwed by them. Constantly.
It doesn’t help that I’ve never been good at Magic.
I remember trying the first video games… and wondering what exactly I kept doing wrong since the computer kept squashing me like an ant EVERY GAME.
I just never “got” it, ya know?
Commander or EDH is what I play almost exclusively now. Lots of fun, especially if your playgroup does more than just build combo decks.
I played Magic heavily for about 10 years then backed away about two years ago. Now I show up to the FLGS for a draft a few times a year, and it’s fun.
If you enjoyed booster drafting before, it’s a format I highly recommend for the occasional player. No “net decks” to worry about. No massive cost if you only play now and then (drafts are 11 bucks at my FLGS). Tons of fun. And in my case at least, drafting skills haven’t depended too much on the set; I was a pretty good drafter before, and I’m still a pretty good drafter now.
Honestly it depends on the groups available in your area. I played Magic from revised to the Urza’s block in the early 2000’s and quit cause I just didn’t have the money to keep playing. Now though I’ve found an awesome store with a great group of gamers and ya know a real job so I’m back playing and really having a blast..
I played back in the beginning, 93-95, in college since I was around friends who played. One even missed a final because he stayed awake playing the night before and slept too late. I gave it up when I changed colleges and couldn’t find people to play with. In the early 2000’s I found some friends who still played and I did well with my old decks with them using new decks… Unfortunately they were friends of a now ex-girlfriend, so when we split I stopped again. I haven’t done anything since then, but I would love to play again, every now and then, just not make a life of it like I did when it was new & I was in college. Unfortunately I am afraid of the addiction that has come over me every time I got into it… I wanted to keep buying and buying and buying new packs and adding them into my decks to see what would happen when you combine a fungus with whatever is out now.
I agree, MTG was very addicting. A friend of mine used to have a shirt that said “Magic-Crack for Gamers”. Way too true.
Two Words: Power Creep. My problem is that cards have slowly, progressively, gotten more powerful and, at the same time, cheaper (in mana, not real money). I think I gave up officially when I saw the Platinum Angel (http://tinyurl.com/23s59tm).
OTOH, I use my old cards once every month or two and get my ass handed to me in a commander free-for-all with some friends who use current cards, and it’s… mostly fun.
Pretty much this. We had an MtG revival at my school recently. People brought in their old cards, we mixed stuff from different eras up, and it was all good. Then some folks got a bit competitive and started buying new cards… and utterly wiped the floor. The amount of power creep even from when I quit playing (Ravnica, much departed from Homelands and Ice Age) is just terrifying.
I’d echo most of the comments that have come before, but it’s really about your level of interest, play style, & what’s available.
If you’re interested in just fooling around Elder Dragon Highlander is probably the way to go. The rules are a little more complicated but the intention of the format builder is that games should be primarily fun. The format has officially been co-opted by Wizards but Sheldon still has his hand in it.
Players looking just for fun is largely missing from the game outside prerelease tournaments & EDH.
I got back into magic last year after a 10 year break as well.
First of all Core Set 2013 (or M13 as most magic players will call it) is a great way to start off getting back in.
I’d talk with some of the Magic players at your local hobby shop to get more info on and get brought up to speed on whats going on with magic because its still the same game but a lot has changed.
Heres a little advice though
DON’T BUY YOUR CARDS FROM: Target, Walmart, or Toys R’ Us or any other big name retail store because their prices are usually $1-3 more than what you should be able to get them at a good Card/Game store.
Also,
M13 will be out for sale in retail in the folowing forms (prices given are about what I’m paying for my cards).
1) Boosters – Available as singles or whole boxes (whole boxes are usually cheaper that buying the same amount of single booster packs). $3.00 a pack, $95-100 per box
2) Intro Decks – These replaced the old random starter decks and are essentially a 60 card deck, usually dual colored, with a particular theme and emphisis on the sets cards thats ready to play out of the box. And it comes with a booster from the same set.
$9.50-10.00 per Intro Deck
3) Fat Packs – A special package that contains 9 boosters, a spindown counter, a players guide (visual list of every card in set, and sometimes more), and a reusable box with art from the set on it. They used to come with the novel that corresponded with the set but no more. Some people like them some people don’t due to cost.
$40.00 per Fat Pack
Have fun
So, the easiest and cheapest way i know of to get back into magic is to booster draft, It’s what my friends and I do about once a month and it goes like this, everyone buys three boosters, open a pack, pick a card, pass the pack around and build a deck. at the end, winner gets first pick of the rares, 1 only, then it moves around the table based on standings, This way, pretty much everybody gets at least 1 good rare, and the people who did best get 2. also, you don’t have to worry about someone who’s spent 3k$ on their deck just trouncing you without a second thought. It’s cheap, relatively easy after the first couple drafts, and a heck of a lot of fun in my opinion. in fact, even when one of us decides to buy a box for our own collection, this is normally how we open the packs. 🙂
There’s been a bunch of good advice for card-buying already, but for catching up with any rules changes since you last played, there’s no better resource than the Returning Player Rules Primer (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/18837546/The_Returning_Player_Rules_Primer)
Thanks for all of the great advice today. I’ve looked over the links you guys are throwing my way and it is good stuff. I’m so ready to get back in and play.
My advise is don’t try to play the Standard or Extended formats competitively because Wizards is releasing new sets too quickly so those wanting to have to fork over a lot of money to keep up with how fast those formats will change.
I’ve pretty much quit worring about those formats because of that to promote and enjoy the new Modern format and the Commander format.
After you get the basic feel for Magic back I advise playing Modern since it is everything from 8th ED Core set and Mirrodin Block up to now so you can rebuild and play any old deck styles you liked.
Commander is nice because it’s a slower pace than a regular 40 or 60 card sized deck game and especially compaired to a Booster Draft game. Also in building a Commander deck you can try to do things you normally couldn’t do with a smaller deck.
As for getting into those formats all I can say for Modern is take your time and “shop around” for the cards you want from the older sets, different sites/stores will sometimes give different prices for singles. Commander is a little easier to get into thanks to the release of the Commander precon decks though I don’t know how easy they are to find now (none of the card shops within 80 miles of where I live have been able to have any in stock, not for lack of trying). Though I don’t know if any card shops or stores like Target or Walmart near where you live might have them so you might have to try looking online for them. The precons are worth getting because they make for a good base line to make your own because they come with most of the basics a Commander deck needs.
I haven’t played in a while. When at the LGS I’ll have a chat with the Magic players and look at the new stuff, but as Mimulus said, some of the stuff is just getting silly. Mind you, it’s fun to look at newer players’ faces when you describe what a Necropetence is. If I’m playing any CCG nowadays, it’s L5R when I have the time and players who know what it is.
I feel your pain buddy.
If you want to get into playing Standard Constructed formats then I recommend you start drafting. It will give you a pool of cards, give you an idea on what all has changed, and give you the ability to start building your deck as you go.
If you want to just get completely off the ground and don’t care too much about the cost. Pick up a box of Avacyn Restored and a Box of M13.
Yeah, it’s over a hundred for each box, but the cost is overall cheaper then you would pay for each pack retail, even less if you get them from an online dealer.
The reason is that Avacyn will be around until next year or so and it has quite a few cards that are considered “must haves” by the community.
Don’t go back to Magic. Go to Culdcept instead. Culdcept Saga is a little known 360 game. A gem in the rough that a lot of people missed. It plays like Magic The Gathering meets Monopoly but that’s a bare bones breakdown that does it no justice.
I even wrote a beginner’s guide that breaks it down bit by bit. Grab the demo on Arcade, we’re always looking for more players.
I know how you feel. I myself am an old-school player from the very first sets and I recently started to get back into it. I’m not doing to bad with my old decks that I updated with newer cards
Forget the DBTC, i just came back after not playing since kamigawa and they have these things called Event Decks If your really competitive about magic buy 2 of any one event deck and build a deck off that however m12 and the whole mirrodin block is rotating out in two months so be cautious about what you buy right now.
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you writing
this write-up and also the rest of the website is very good.
You’re probably already playing at this point, but I would start with friends that play. Playtest a few decks to see what you like. Personally goblins are awesome and Rakdos looks sweet! But I wouldn’t know that if not for my friends.
Ah Magic. I’ve just waded back in with the coming of the most recent semester.
I really irritate one of my friends because he has 5 decks he’s spent hours lovingly constructing. I run a zombie deck I got straight out of the box at Wondercon. I’ve gone just about unbeaten for the last month and a half. XD
I started to lose interest in magic during the scars of mirrodin block but was definitely excited for the release of both the innistrad and return to ravnica blocks. i think we only have great things to look forward to with the release of theros and beyond. i’ll definitely be picking up a few theros booster boxes and participating in some local tournaments