We played a *LOT* of Magic back in the 90’s. My circle got in right around 3rd Edition and I got out right around right around Ice Age. It was just too much of a skinner box… every booster pack an opportunity for glory with your 3 uncommons and 1 rare… leaving you in a puddle of disappointment when you find that the rare was yet another Jandor’s Saddlebags. Maybe the next booster pack will have a Royal Assassin in it…
I dumped waaay too much of my tip money into Magic. And then into Netrunner, and then into the equally brilliant Mechwarrior game. I then had something akin to the insight that while it’s not always true that the person who has spent the most money on a deck will have the better one, it’s the way to bet. Which, of course, creates an arms race which, of course, is a game that nobody ever really wins. (But that little burst of Dopamine you get when you hear your opponent say “that card does what? Let me see that!” is what the skinner box is all about.)
This is too bad because, really, Magic was an absolutely brilliant game. Only a couple ways to win (remove all life from your opponent, have your opponent be unable to draw a card from their deck, poison tokens), but five (well, six) colors for your decks, dozens of combinations of colors, making scores of different kinds of deck variants you could build with each one feeling different to play (and to play against). The recent release of Magic games for the XBox 360 allows people to play without forcing them to play the meta-arms race game but there’s just something about sitting down and playing with real people.
Which is why I’m thrilled to have discovered the “Living Card Game” card game format. Fantasy Flight Games describes it like this:
A Living Card Game® (LCG®) offers an innovative fixed distribution method that breaks away from the traditional Collectible Card Game model. While LCGs still offer the same dynamic, expanding, and constantly evolving game play that makes CCG’s so much fun, they do away with the deterrent of the blind-buy purchase model that has burned out so many players. The end result is an innovative mix that gives you the best of both worlds!
They’ve got games for Lord of the Rings, Cthulhu, they’ve picked up the Star Wars license, and (this is the best part) they’re bringing back Netrunner!
I’ve got dozens of great memories playing these games (and dozens of bad ones related to opening booster packs). It’s awesome that these games are back and I am very much indeed looking forward to playing them again.
The limitation, of course, is that you won’t be able to make, say, your Blue and White Millstone deck or your Black and Green teeming hordes deck, or your Red and White direct damage/wall deck (and the stories of how they beat your friends’ Red Goblin deck, or their Green/White Buffed Creature deck, or their Black/Blue card denial deck)… but that’s pretty secondary to actually sitting down and playing again, right?
Besides, those stories are best retold than rediscovered. What Magic stories bubbled up for you? What was your favorite deck?
Favorite deck was all white, almost. Four Savannah Lions, Two White Knights, Two Samite Healers, Two Serra Angels, Four Benalish Heroes, Two Wards of (whatever color I was playing against , if I knew), Four White Wards, An Armageddon, Two Wrath of Gods, The Hive, A Juggernaut, an Obsianus Golem, Four Healing Salves, Two Holy Strengths, A Swords to Plowshares, Four Consecrate Lands, and 17 plains. 54 cards.
You can guess how it played.
Hmm. I had a really lovely black weenie deck. Nothing over a casting cost of 3. (I wanted the Sorcreress Queens). Will or the Wisps, Sorcercess Queens, Royal Assasins…and tons of regenerating skeletons. The Dark expansion had just come out, which had some lovely token creatures.
Had a blue deck I merely called “Nope!”. (It’s entire purpose was to not let you do anything, or if you did, take it for myself). If you managed to summon a creature, it was because I let you — and I had a way of taking it for myself.
Then a fun red/green deck that was designed entirely to kill you with Ornithopters. Elves, Birds of Paradise, Ornithopters — and giant’s growths, beserks, forks, lighting bolts, and fireballs. And a few others.
A friend of mine had a similar deck, we used to play Two Headed Giant that way. Really annoyed the snot out of people. Not the best design — it lost as much as it won — but FUN to play. 🙂
I miss the game enough that some of my similarly minded friends are mulling over playing regular draft games. Our card collections, those that still have them, range all over the place and no one can be bothered to pick a ruleset. My newest cards are from whatever came after Dark, another’s were from about two years ago, etc.
I got into Magic a little later than you (started with Ice Age, and I quit some time after Slivers came into being).
I do have a basic set of Netrunner around somewhere too, so I’m a little psyched to see it make a come-back. Though I haven’t gotten into the Living Card Games so far, the logistics of them are a little problematic from this side of the world.
Holy crud! They are looking at Netrunner!! That was my all time favorite game. Still have all my cards. The main thing I hope they do with the game is figure out a good way to do multi-player and tournements. That is what killed the original Netrunner.
I still play magic. Though I took a break for 10-15 years before starting up again. I have two decks I really like. A Storm deck (Storm is a spell that copies itself for each spell you played before it) and a Fading+ Proliferate deck (Fading has time counters that are removed from the card and the card is discarded once you cannot remove another counter, Proliferate is the ability to add counters to cards).
According to the info at the website, it’s a 2 player game, so no joy for multiplayer.
However, tournament play doesn’t strike me as especially problematic.
A Stasis deck — the goal being not to win, but to make it impossible for the other player to win. Land/Creature hybrids, get as many of them onto the floor, and then stomp your opponent. Use meekstones/etc to keep their creatures at bay.
When Jason and I got together, Magic was one of the many things we both enjoyed, and one of the few we could no longer afford because of our grad school poverty. I don’t remember which of us got the idea of buying sticker-type printer paper and making stickers of Magic cards to put on regular playing cards, but it was a great one.
We made, like, a dozen cards, but we didn’t get much further than that. This was because we got the idea of choosing our own images and flavor text, and that ended up being more fun than actually making the cards or playing the game. I’ll see if I can find those cards and scan a couple in to show.
That is *AWESOME*.
I do wish to see!
+11111
Ah Magic, I was lured in around 3rd edition and was utterly enchanted. The pictures! The flavor text! The elegant symmetry of the five colors! The party started sounding a sour note with Weatherlight. The lame characters, the retarded stories, the inflation of card power. I got out around sliver time myself; they were an abomination and by then I could see the writing on the wall; to compel continued purchasing Wizards allowed a steady inflation of card power versus their cost. To remain competitive with your peers purchasing of new cards was essential (and with it the insane mass of cards you would accumulate). I recognized the strategy and refused to run in their wheel anymore (though I can admire it in a detached manner). Alas my friends still play so I can still shake my head over the state of the game. Also, get off my lawn!!!
I don’t play magic, really. I can take a deck that someone else had built and play with it, but I don’t own any cards and wouldn’t know how to go about building an effective deck. My boyfriend plays, but his work schedule means he doesn’t get the chance to play much.
It’s one of the more popular events at the weekly meetings of Cal Poly’s campus gaming club. Elder Dragon Highlander (aka Commander) is pretty common. They do drafts every month or so.
It’s not really that big at the quarterly game days and the big convention in June: We’ll have a couple of tournaments, but most of the magic players take advantage of the bigger events to play other RPGs and boardgames that they don’t normally get the chance to play.
I own the base Call of Cthulhu game from Fantasy Flight, but none of the non-randomized expansions. My friend Alek owns the Game of thrones one and I strongly suspect that my friend Jason will buy the new Netrunner when it comes out. I’m also really eager to try their LotR game — The idea of a co-operative CCG is pretty intriguing.
And those of you interested in gaming who live in (or near) California should come attend that aforementioned game convention: PolyCon. In San Luis Obispo, so it’s conveniently close to Both LA and the Bay area. It’s the big 30 this year, and we’ve got Shane Hensley (creator of Deadlands and Savage Worlds) and Tom Jolly (creator of Wiz War and Drakon) as our special guests.
A few things to mention:
1) When I was in college we were playing starting with Alpha and Beta cards (black borders for the win) and then into Arabian Nights. I actually played two colors at once but had a “system” where I’d mix a set of cards of two colors with my artifacts and colorless cards. So I had 20 Red, 20 blue, and then 20 colorless (I think this was before rules limiting deck size). Sadly my entire collection disappeared when I moved home from college at the end of my sophomore year. Much drama when I didn’t believe my roommates had no idea what happened to them.
Asside: If you’re teaching your girlfriend how to play, don’t use a blue deck. She slapped me after my 3rd counterspell.
Also on the freebie thing:
My son and I play on Super Hero Squad Online which has a built in Collectable card game. You do end up dropping some real coin to get fake coin to get the better card packs (or you can be a member and get a stipend monthly) but it’s an easy to learn card game and kind of fun. Also they just announced that Upper Deck is making the actual card game as, ya know, physical cards. I keep hounding the local comic shop to stock them.
Easing someone into the game, I think I’d recommend red vs. green (or vice versa).
Yeah. Sadly at that time I was working with two decks, my Red/Green and my Blue/Black. I had an all white deck that was a little wonky so I gave her the Red/Green (creatures and direct damage) and used my Blue/Black (figuring that all the counterspells and taps, and paralyzes would be too tricky to use well for a new player).
Of course this was back when just finding boosters was a pain and you couldn’t walk into an average store and just buy a starter deck that was worth anything. Most starter decks, if I recall correctly, had cards of all 5 colors in them making them extremely hampered on principle.