Magic the gathering ?

[GrubbTheFragger]

Seriously anyone who collects or plays or is at all interested XD

If some people plays what colors are your decks and what are your favirote cards?

[ShiroiHikari]

Funny that you asked this, since I just played it for the first time the other night! My husband is really into it right now, but I still don't really know what I'm doing yet, so I can't say much about it except that I'd like to try playing again soon.

[GrubbTheFragger]

Yeah i just recently got hooked and its alot of fun as well as quite a mental exercise

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I used to play. My favorite deck I have is black and blue. Blue cards were probably all counterspells, whereas my black were filled with some high mana cost creatures with very special skills (1 Avatar of Woe, 2 Laquatus' Champton, 2 Visara the Dreadful, etc) and some other medium mana cost creatures which controlled the board (Faceless Butcher, etc).

The way for me to play was usually playing a bunch of cards (and counterspelling most things) until I would draw a Buried Alive (Search my library for up to 3 creature cards and put them in my graveyard) and Zombify (Costs only 4 mana. Return creature card from graveyard to play). Having Diabolical Tutors helps a lot to speed this process up (search library for any card and put it in your hand).

So basically I'd find my high-cost and deadly creatures and put them in my graveyard, and then basically resurrect them for a much lower mana cost. And to help defend myself during this I'd have some Druge Skeletons and Faceless Butchers and tons of counterspells.

It's a really fun deck to play. lol

Edit: By the way, guys. MTG can be really fun. But be careful or your money will go down the drain, lol. I've spent way too much money on this game growing up, haha. If you're gonna invest and make really killer decks, be prepared to dish out a lot of money. But aside from all that, have fun! Just don't go broke because of it.

[ShiroiHikari]

Apparently some of the cards become pretty valuable over time, so at least it might not be a total waste of money. XD

[GrubbTheFragger]

Apparently some of the cards become pretty valuable over time, so at least it might not be a total waste of money. XD

black lotus from the very first magic set is currently sitting at a value of 4000 dollars XD so yeah, but Jace, the mind sculpter is from a series you can still buy packs from and is sitting at almost 200 bucks and rising so they do get pretty valuable at times

[Mr. SmartyPants]

The reason why they are so expensive is because they are REALLY good cards. In time the rules have changed so some leagues don't allow certain cards anymore.

Case in point, Black Lotus. It's absolutely crazy what you can do with it.

[Htom Sirveaux]

Like I said on Facebook, I remember this game from highschool but I never got a chance to play. My parents thought it was "evil". Of course, it's not. Heck, people used to say that about standard playing cards. In any case, I had to settle for Marvel's OverPower TCG. And I only knew like, two other guys who played that. I might still have all my cards somewhere, though . . .

[Hiryu]

Yea, I play, but I'm diverting my money for cards over to Pokemon ATM. I have like a crapload of magic cards, but when you compare it to the pokemon cards I have, It's like comparing a house to a skyscraper.

Anyway, I have my standard decks include:
Blue/Black mill deck (Traumatize, Haunting Echoes, Keening Stone) it comes in handy when I'm playing a white deck with Emeria or black with graveyard manipulation. If I can stop your creatures from attacking me, I can pretty much win. I call this "Mutilation."

Green tribal Wurm deck.

Blue/White stall deck. Try to get out the Sword of Body and Mind. Unblockable creatures.

Blue/Red Sorcery and Instants deck. I have stuff like Echo Mage, Surrakar Spellblade, and Fire servants.

Red/Green Eldrazi deck. This one's not totally standard.

I also have a red,white, and green nonstandard deck.

I have been playing Magic since about 2002, although I had a period for a few years when I didn't play magic because there was no one to play.

[Mr. Rogers]

I used to play all the time, but the comic shop I played at shut down. I haven't played much since, but I would like to start up again.

[ShiroiHikari]

I am currently standing at 0 wins, 4 losses. This is very bad for my morale. My husband has this massive five-color deck that I just can't win against with the red deck I was using, not when he has fricking legendary dragons and crap in his deck.

My deck also doesn't have a bazillion artifacts from which I can draw mana like his does, so it takes me several turns to get any mana out and by the time I can get out, say, Ancient Hellkite or whatever the name of that other dragon was, he's got like this huge mana pool and a bunch of Instants so it doesn't even fricking matter whether I have Ancient Hellkite or not.

I don't think I'm going to keep playing this game. Not against him, anyway.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Red's strength is damage buildup. Constant sorcery and instant spells which do direct damage. There are also spells which do damage to every creature and stuff.

Also, Goblins work very well. But for the most part red is focused on direct damage, kind of like Green. Green however often focuses on simply overpowering your opponents with mass creatures.

So if you're playing red, the key is to keep bludgeoning your opponent over and over till he's dead. Because he's playing a five-color deck, he can't get enough mana unless he has other means to boost his mana pool. Case in point, you mentioned his artifacts.

So you may want "destroy target artifact" cards in handy.

But all that will probably cost you. Point being that to have a good deck will run you a good amount of money. XD

[Hiryu]

Luckily for you,Red has a lot of destroy artifact cards.

You could be cheap and run a land destruction mechanic. There's a card called liquidsteel coating, which turns any permanent (any card on the battlefield, enchantments, creatures, etc.) into an artifact until end of turn. Very effective, especially in a "rainbow" deck.

There's also a few cards that can turn a land into another land, like Evil Presence, which turns enchanted land into a swamp. Corrupted Zendikar is better though, because when he taps for mana, he'll lose 2 life.

Of course, it may not matter if he draws a lot of mana over a few turns.

And like Mr.smartpants said, keep lightning bolting the crap out of him, or his creatures. You could save whatever red "burn" spells you have for his creatures, and when he doesn't have any left, you could possibly do a good amount of combat damage.

How many mountains do you have in your deck? You want to try to have mana as a 1/3 of your deck, which if you're running a 60-card deck, 20-22 should be plenty. Ideally, try to keep your deck below 75-80 cards.

You could try to mill him, although that's really reserved for blue.

White has a lot of stuff that can protect you from damage. Blinding mage can tap his creatures so that creature can't attack, unless he can make it untap. Pacifism is an enchantment that says creature can't attack or block. There are a few white cards that you can use to prevent damage. Some creatures have an ability like that, but it's usually only 1 or 2, not much.

Green is the best way to prevent combat damage. Fogs only cost a forest, and it prevents all combat damage for the turn.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

What's magical (har har) about red is that it's probably the only color that has the potential of being the least dependent on creatures. Of course you'd want creatures so they can block other creature attacks and all. But because there's such a high number of sorcery/instants that deal direct damage, many red players build off of this strategy.

Blue and white work well in terms of disabling/negating your opponent. Pacifism and other similar cards are great (all mostly white) whereas blue is just riddled with counterspells. Counterspell can really make people mad; especially when they're going to play some epic card and you get rid of it a simple instant that costs 2 blue mana. XD

[ich1990]

Magic does sound like fun. I was a little into Yu-gi-oh back in the day, so this is the next logical progression. Plus, virtually everyone at my geek school plays. Seems pretty expensive though......

[Hiryu]

Yep, that's what I like about blue. You can tell people not to play a spell that'll screw you over.

[ShiroiHikari]

Magic does sound like fun. I was a little into Yu-gi-oh back in the day, so this is the next logical progression. Plus, virtually everyone at my geek school plays. Seems pretty expensive though......

So far it seems like it's not any more expensive than video games, unless you're trying to collect rares and mythic rares. Around these parts, a 2011 intro pack costs about 13 dollars, 15-card booster packs cost somewhere between 3 and 4 dollars, and there's also a "deck builder's kit" that has an obscene number of cards in it (something like 280) for about twenty dollars.

Also, thanks for the advice, guys. I think I'm really starting to get the idea now. My husband bought a pre-made blue deck yesterday (the Jace so-and-so deck) and he didn't think it was all that cool but I thought it was awesome. TONS of land cards, and counterspells galore!

[GrubbTheFragger]

I play Blue white (complete with plainswalkers and 2 baneslayers), and Red black. My wife plays Monoblack and Green. Green is a great started color very easy to learn on unless its a token deck then it gets annoying

[ShiroiHikari]

Yeah, I've been learning on a straight-up red deck. Last night we had this massive game with six people. We split into three teams of two so it was pretty insane and the rule was that you could play instants, enchantments, or even deal damage to your own partner if you wanted to. My husband and I eventually won the game (three hours later) but I give all the credit to his five-color deck and the fact that he played Asceticism on me early in the game and nobody had a chance to destroy the card.

What's funny is that with this red deck, the same thing keeps happening to me every time. I'll get like three land and a really big card like Earth Servant or Hoard-Smelter Dragon in my opening hand. Then it takes FOREVER for me to draw more land. Seriously, in the course of that three-hour game I only managed to draw six fricking mountains and one of them I drew at like the last minute. But I got Hoard-Smelter Dragon out so I can't complain too much

Other players got mana-screwed as well; the girl playing blue only had like four islands for most of the game and another guy had like three mountains and one island for most of the game. And the guy with the green deck literally drew like 15 forests, and the guy with the blue/black artifact deck also drew a crapton of swamps and islands. Me and the blue girl player were like WHERE IS OUR LAND FFFF--

[Htom Sirveaux]

I really need to meet some folks locally who play this. It sounds like fun, provided I'm not with people who take it way too seriously.

[Hiryu]

Yea, that's what happens to me. I think it may be the way you gather up the cards when you finish and how you shuffle, assuming that the deck is balanced in terms of mana and creatures/spells.

That, and my deck is like "I don't feel like playing," and when I mill again, I literally get 4 or 5 of the same cards I had in my hand. *headdesk and cry* My decks can be such trolls sometimes. *Rage*

Oh yea, red has no cards that destroy enchantments, so you weren't going to do much to his creatures.

[ShiroiHikari]

I really need to meet some folks locally who play this. It sounds like fun, provided I'm not with people who take it way too seriously.

There's a thingy on the website that helps you find places to play locally.

http://ww2.wizards.com/StoreAndEventLocator/

[Htom Sirveaux]

Cool, I'll have to check that out.
I picked up an intro pack today, just to see how it all looks. My only prior TCG experience being with Marvel OverPower, I must say Magic actually looks somewhat simpler than I remember OP being.

[ShiroiHikari]

My husband totally pulled a Liliana Vess card from a 2011 booster pack the other day. Lucky~

[GrubbTheFragger]

My husband totally pulled a Liliana Vess card from a 2011 booster pack the other day. Lucky~

Very nice, She is essential to all black discard decks. I have Venser and Isbeth from Scars in my Blue white deck

[ShiroiHikari]

Yeah, we have the Elspeth vs. Tezzeret duel deck set, and my husband ordered a different Elspeth off eBay recently There's some freaking scary cards in that duel deck set, lemme tell ya.

[Hiryu]

Yea, most of the cards from the duel decks are cards that are from old sets that haven't been reprinted either in a long time or ever. Can't play them in a standard tournament.

"Old school jankness."

[ShiroiHikari]

So the duel decks aren't tournament legal? What's the point of having them, then...?

Today, we picked up the Duels of the Planeswalkers: Liliana Vess deck. It looks like a pretty mean discard deck...

[Hiryu]

Well it's because most of the cards haven't been reprinted in the standard tournament block. Some may be, but most are not. Elspeth and Tezzeret are fine because they have an equivalent card in the standard block. Looking at the cardlist, it's probably 50/50 in what's standard/not standard.

They're fine if you want to casually play with someone else.

And yeah, back in the day, there was a nasty discard combo with megrims, the rack, underworld dreams, etc.

[ich1990]

Just played my first game today. I played with a mono green deck with some sliver creatures in it, and the other guy had a crazy Myr deck. Things started great, and by four turns in I had knocked him down to 6 health without a scratch, but I kept drawing lands and no creatures and he ground my offensive to a halt.

Eventually, he got his deck rolling, pulled out some infinite mana crap and used a fireball to X damage me into oblivion.

It was a fun game, though, and I really like the green deck philosophy, which is basically to smash dudes in the face a lot. It feels refreshingly simple compared to all the Myr spawning of 1/1 tokens and mana and such.

I look forward to playing again sometime.