So a lot of my friends from back home started playing this a few months back, I finally bit the bullet and had a go with their spare cards and found it quite enjoyable. While still a bit nervous about the level of geekiness involved, I have gone and ordered myself some cards.

Do any DLP members play? There must be some players on here.

What formats do you play? I quite enjoyed multiplayer. One on one I found less interesting, but that might have been because I was using borrowed cards and was getting completely trashed, lol. We also invented a 3 on 1 version, with the person on their own allowed 30 health, 2 draws a turn and able to lay 2 lands a turn. Everyone else plays as normal for multiplayer, except with an agreement to attack the one person (although it's quite amusing to turn on your allies). Ended up pretty fun, and surprisingly balanced. Wins were shared equally between the three and the one.

What colour deck do people use? I'm going for a (mainly) Green/Black deck, all from Magic 2011 set. I didn't want to get anything older as a lot of them are being phased out of standard play in October. When October rolls around I'll probably get a few boosters from the new block.

 

Well, Taure, I used to play a year or so ago. Mostly (only, really) Standard, though others tend to like Drafting more. Can't see why, but whatever. Don't worry about the level of geekiness, that game is like a mix of poker and chess at higher levels of competition. In fact, there are some Magic pros who compete in Poker tournaments and some Poker pros who play Magic recreationally. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/columns/story?columnist=wise_gary&id=4259905
One thing to remember though, if you get hooked on Magic: the Gathering, you won't ever fully quit. Even now, after a year without playing in a single game, I still occassionally check up on what's happening, read coverage from major tournaments and think about the possibility of playing again. That shit's addicting. And expensive. At least some cards are. For example, this season, if you wanted to get a blue competitive Standard deck, you had to buy some copies of Jace, the Mindsculptor. Each copy costs around 90$. But that's kinda rare.

So, Taure, the game is awesome, addictive, but can get expensive. You've been warned!

EDIT: And by the way, my avatar? http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=166392

 

Lol, one of my friends has three copies of that Jace card. Didn't know he paid so much for it though.

 

Well, it's possible that he didn't. He might have traded for it, or he might have been really lucky and got them in a draft or something.

 

Taure, I played competatively for five years, and I've got most of the Power Nine. I gave it up when I went to University and when the power creep got too infuriating for me to handle (honestly, what the hell is with Wizards these days?).

In all fairness, I've played pretty much every generic type of deck, and considering I've played competitively with every block after Tempest (so that's the Urza, Masques, Invasion, Odyssey, Onslaught, Mirrodin, Kamigawa, Ravnica, and Time Spiral blocks - I only played casually with Lorwyn and Shadowmoor), I tend to view the most recent blocks with scorn and distaste. I also know that regardless of the power-creep, I have a Necrodeck (played properly with Zuran Orb and Necropotence) that can still steamroller pretty much every deck in Standard.

Multiplayer MtG is a lot of fun, depending on the skill level and the decks of your fellow players, although any games with more than five players tends to get hectic. Btw, your little three-on-one format would be entertaining, but the single player has a massive advantage if he has the right deck (ie. Necrodeck, Slivers, Ravager/Affinity, Tog, Reanimator, etc.).

As I said, I've played every type of deck at some point, but I've always had a soft spot for a few decks in particular (Necrodeck, BlueGreen Madness, LinSivvi Rebels, Tog, RavagerAffinity, Snakes, and a nasty little Kamigawa-standard Zubera-Greed deck). If you need a hand with mana balancing or deck configuration, Taure, give me a shout - as I've said, I've been playing this game for ages.

 

By power creep I assume you mean they produce more and more powerful cards as time goes by? That does sound like it would get annoying, but from the perspective of a new player, the game seems fairly balanced.

Some of the terms you use are unfamiliar to me. What's a Necrodeck? One that has lots of cards to return cards from the graveyard? I may turn to you for some advice about deck construction once my cards arrive in the post. The only thing I can ask right now is, in a 60 card deck, what's the best number of lands to have? Something like 25?

 

My former roomie and I used to play/collect, but he wasn't big on following any defined rules, so we just kinda made our own. Contrary to what Dante said I haven't played Magic for almost four years and it hasn't haunted/plagued me at all.

I could just be one of the rare cases, though.

As to what kind of deck I played, I had a black deck that I preferred, but I also liked a white deck too with a green not too far behind. I even had a blue deck, but I didn't use that one as much. Red's the only deck I didn't ever really touch. Mostly cause my roomie had a monopoly going on red, and it was a painful deck.

 

And you post this where?

 

Not exactly. It's primarily a creature-term, used for the fact that more and more often, cheap, very powerful creatures are being produced for less and less mana. Take, for instance, the Ravnica card Watchwolf. For one green and one white, it's a 3/3, which was fucking unheard of in the earlier blocks. A 3/3 for two? And Lorwyn, Shadowmoor, and Alera only made the problem that much worse, with the arrivals of uber!rares and extremely cheap planeswalkers (which most old-school magic players hate on principle - in the game, the two players are supposed to be representing planeswalkers - one reason nobody ever got cards representing Urza or Freyalise or Lord Windgrace, but already I'm using names that you have no idea about...)

And you think the game is balanced... oh god, man. Trust me when I say this, it's not.

A Necrodeck is a mono-black deck built around drawing cards. See, back in the day, black had a nasty theme of paying life to draw cards - lots of them. Thus the arrival of cards like Yawgmoth's Bargain and my personal favourite, Necropotence, which is basically an enchantment with 'Pay one life, draw one card'. A Necrodeck is a black weenie deck that revolves around this card and simply rushing the opponent with hordes of cheap, powerful black creatures, and nuking anything that came close. First turn, the Necrodeck would usually drop a Swamp, Dark Ritual, and a Hypnotic Specter, which would hit you next turn for two and you'd lose a card at random from your hand. Follow it up with cards like Hymn To Tourach and you'd soon have no hand and I'd have dozens of creatures on the field pummeling you.

Reanimator, on the other hand, is a finicky little deck that involves dumping monstrously huge creatures from your deck into the graveyand and then using fun cards like Dawn of the Dead or Zombify or Living End to bring them back and beating the shit out of you.

If you're running 25 lands in a deck and it's not a Control deck (usually blue or blue/black, though white sometimes makes a presence), you're doing something wrong. The more lands you have in a deck, the slower it is, because you're replacing cards that could be creatures or spells with lands, which are only there for mana purposes. The fastest decks - and nearly every deck I've ever run - typically stick with 20 basic lands, and even most of the slower ones cap it at 24. Getting the mana ratio right, on the other hand (how many plains/islands/swamps/mountains/forests you should run) is an entirely different science.

 

I still play a bit. I've played online as well. Online Playtable is fairly awesome. MWS is as well, but I prefer OPT.

Thats... a bit heavy on land for a 60 card deck, if I remember the formulas right. Honestly, the best way to do it is to check into some decks online. A few sites provide them, some even customized for the free MTG programs.

MTG Vault, Magic-League (They USED to have all of the competitive play decks, but I havent looked ni a while), Mox Diamond, and Magic Deck Vortex.

There are others and a few god places, light slightlymagic .net, that gives a lot of help building and perfecting.

If anyone is interested, I can start my OPT server back up and we could get some games going.

 

That actually sounds like a lot of fun Vash I'd be interested in playing some folks here. I haven't had anyone to play in a while now but I run a solid green custom elf deck. Its a bit of a slow burn but once it gets rolling its pretty much unstoppable. I also have a blue negation deck that Im working on but its incredibly boring, there isn't any challenge in it.

 

The reason why I suggested something like 24 was that most of the decent cards seem to take 5-6 mana to play. Which means you're going to want to be getting 7 lands or so between your starting hand and your first 8 draws or so (most games I played seemed to end by the time 8 turns had passed) so 7 lands to every 15 cards is... many lands.

But I defer to your superior experience

Also, DLP MTG sounds fun.

 

I remember playing a lot in middle school and high school, it was pretty damn fun. I had this green deck and some legendary monster with trample, so my whole strategy was centered around buffing the hell out of him and inst-killing my opponent.

It was a horrible strategy, I got my ass kicked many times. But those few instances when I brought out this monster and gave him 40/40 or something it was magical (Honestly, I don't remember how I buffed him that well. I recall having a card that doubled attack and defense). Maybe the stats were lower, but I'm not sure. I could be remembering incorrectly.

None of us were really very good at the game, we just tried to think up fun strategies. I recall a guy that spammed 1/1 squirrel tokens and used Overrun (+3/3 and trample). Someone else used a fire deck that was completely focused on doing direct damage to the player while stalling with high defense creatures. That one was a bitch to play against.

 

I used to play as an amateur after a friend dragged my into it. Bought a couple of decks, played a few games. But he got bored of it and I had no-one to play with, I wasnt skilled enough to go to tournaments. That was some months ago.
I'd like to play again, practice some. I liked the game, and I would welcome a chance to play again.

 

I used to have a Blue Denial deck; I was the Blue mage in my group - I'm the only person I ever knew to own 4 Force of Wills.

A buddy of mine and I used to have pure red Zap decks, full of Lightning Bolts, Chain Lightning, Ball Lightning, Guerilla Tactics and the like - and yes, I played back when 4th edition was just coming out.

It always came down to basically who went first. he still plays in tournaments and stays on top of the game, but I got out about three years ago, sold my cards (to him) and bought 40k instead. (You want an expensive hobby? Don't get me started.)

But yes, the strategic gameplay elements are similar to poker, but you can make anything you like - it's a great way to have pure fun.

 

DLP MTG would be awesome, do we require a deck IRL to use OPT? I gave mine to that roomie I mentioned when I lost interest.

 

Am occupied and away from my computer, but I'll get it up in a few hours. Check back then. If you're gonna grab OPT, you might want to pic up my scan collection to make it more authentic!

As for my decks... Used to have an epic solid green Squirrel deck. Nut Collecter, Krosan Beast, Deranged Hermit, and and Parallel Evotultion. Twas awesome.

But its rare I play solid colors. I typically stick to Blue/Black.

 

Eh its not awful or anything Taure but there are far better ways to get that and more land into your deck without using a basic land. For instance as I said I run a custom solid green elf thats based around token generation and boosting the shit out of all of them. I have cards like Llanowar Elf which is a 1/1 Elf that acts as a land card as well which is perfect for starting off with. Then I have the most fuckwin awesome land generator in my deck the Priest of Titania which is a 1/1 Elf that when I tap it gives me one forest for every elf in play and it only costs two to play. It easily handles my land needs for my biggest shit. By using these kind of cards you can seriously cut down on your land needs.

Edit: Rofl xD that is fucking awesome Vash.

 

No, you don't need an IRL deck. If you know what you had, you can rebuild it. One of the decent things to playng with online programs is you have access to every card ever made without paying out the ass to do it.

The second OPT link I left has a tutorial for using it. Its all fairly simple.

 

Krogan, by any chance were you one of those faggots who ran Wellwisher during Onslaught Block? Because if you were, my Slivers and Goblins have something to say to you.

Here's the thing, Taure: you're playing black/green. Since Dark Ritual has come back into Standard (at the same time as Hypnotic Spectre, no less), black decks never have problems getting enough mana unless they're really top-heavy. And green - fuck, green has Llanowar Elves (or the Lorwyn equivalent) and more mana searching/fixing colours than anything the game. At the most in your deck, I'd be running 22 lands (and four Dark Rituals, obviously).

I've done both strategies at one point, except replace squirrels with Odyssey-block wurms and high defense creatures with land destruction.

You know one more, right here. There's a REASON they banned it.